Dulce Et Decorum Est
by Ayien
Summary: When Kakashi and Iruka follow Naruto into the forest at night, they learn just what Naruto has sacrificed to keep Konoha safe. It is Kakashi's duty, confronted with his failure, and Gaara of the Sand's to bring Naruto back from the darkness. Betaed by Ais
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This story was written when I was younger, and quite frankly, I don't consider it my best work. It reeks of immaturity, as it falls into the 'rape can be cured by healing sex' mindset, a contemptible action. While I no longer enjoy this story, I have decided to leave it up, both to preserve my own work and its reviews, and as a testament to how far I have matured since then.

The former members of Team Seven and their peers are now twenty.

**Warnings**: This story contains explicit references to rape, violence, and sex. If these are triggers for you, I highly recommend not reading this.

* * *

The moon was full and yellow like a drop of amber, Naruto decided. Yellow like the eyes of Shukaku, yellow like ramen. He blinked- his eyelids felt like they were weighted down like Gai and Lee's legs- and took a long gulp of coffee, setting his mug down on the windowsill beside him while scratching his ANBU tattoo with the other hand.

'Ew.' Coffee tasted sick, like dead cats! He swallowed it down anyway, since anything- anything- that kept him from sleeping was a blessing. 'Sasuke-teme's probably asleep, too,' he thought, grinning when he thought of how he had finally brought Sasuke back from Orochimaru, screaming and kicking all the way, of how Sasuke had taken his probation, of how everything was right again.

His head drooped towards his knees. 'Fuck!' He jerked up and rubbed furiously at his eyes, then went into his molding bathroom and splashed water on his face, staring fixedly into the mirror.

"Come on, Uzumaki, Gaara did this for twelve years, you can do it too!" Hunted, bruised blue eyes stared back at him in a pale face, dark rings surrounding them.

He turned away from the specter in the mirror and went back over to the windowsill, curling back up on it. Shadows stretched over the streets of Konoha, the buildings like monsters- there was a scratching in the back of his head, hard and cruel, a horrible voice- lit by the moon above.

For a while he entertained himself with a fantasy of caring, a fantasy that Kakashi-sensei would teach him, that Sakura would look away from Sasuke's broody glory and look at him for once.

'Are you okay?' He swallowed, then buried his head in his knees. "No." His voice was weak. The voice laughed, and he felt the sensation of fire burning in his belly. He took a shuddering breath; he had to do this, had to protect Sasuke and Sakura and obaa-chan and all of Konoha, because it was- it was-

His duty.

The answer was still as bitter as it ever was.

* * *

"Hatake-san, I'm worried about Naruto," Iruka said, rolling chalk between his fingers.

"The kid's fine," Kakashi said dismissively, turning another page of his Icha Icha Paradise book.

Iruka stalked over and slammed the covers shut, glaring into Kakashi's visible eye, ignoring Kakashi's futile attempts to open the book again.

"Kakashi-" the jounin looked up at Iruka's uncharacteristic impoliteness, then quailed away, "for someone with the Sharingan eye, you lack observational skills. Naruto has ceased begging for ramen, he has huge, black circles under his eyes, and when I tried to give him a hug, he flinched away and then tried to excuse it as having a back problem." Iruka could feel his teeth grinding together as he forced out the last words,

"He hasn't even asked Sakura for a _date _in over a month, for God's sake!" Iruka watched with grim satisfaction as Kakashi's eye widened, then he let go of the book. It was a testament to Kakashi's shock that he didn't immediately stick his nose back into it. Iruka passed a hand over his face, rubbing at his forehead, than pinched the bridge of his nose wearily.

"Look, Hatake-san, if you doubt me, watch Naruto when you and your former team have your little sparring session. Then you'll see."

He turned away and went back to his work, noting Kakashi's exit in a poof of smoke with a sour curl of his lips. 'May God help you if you don't help him. Goodness knows you've never helped Naruto before.'

The chalk broke in his fingers.

* * *

"Yo!" Kakashi grinned lopsidedly at his former team, perching on the side of the bridge. "There was a flood in my apartment, and I had to rescue my ducks-"

"Liar!" Sakura shouted. Naruto didn't say anything, occupied with leaning heavily on the bridge railing, staring at the water rushing underneath them. "Hey, Naruto, what's up with you?" The blond blinked, as if broken out of a dream, then jerked upright, grinning. "Eheheh, nothing, Sakura! Just thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner tonight, that's all." Sasuke frowned at the thick rings around Naruto's guileless blue eyes.

"Not that I care, dobe, but are you trying to look like Gaara or something?" Naruto blinked at him. "Huh?" Sasuke rolled his eyes, then elaborated.

"The rings around your eyes, dumb ass."

"Oh, those. I was up late studying some new jutsus." Sakura and Sasuke, seeming to be satisfied with the answers, turned away. Naruto slumped back over with a sigh once the attention was off him, wincing. Kakashi looked at him over the edge of his book, then put it away and gazed down at Sasuke and Sakura.

"Now that we've thoroughly interrogated Naruto, time to spar!" Kakashi leaped off the edge of the bridge and landed on the water, then teleported away to the training grounds. Seemed like he was going to have to keep a close eye on the Kyuubi's container, after all.

* * *

"No, Naruto, like this!" Kakashi dodged a clumsy kick, then punched him in the stomach. Naruto absorbed the hit without a wince, then pressed forward in a flurry of punches, his legs slow and ponderous, almost as if he was-

He was limping.

Annoyed at Naruto's lack of fight, Kakashi slid around to the back. Naruto was too slow, allowing Kakashi to slip up behind him and put him in a hold, his arms wound through Naruto's and immobilizing him. The younger man's ribs and knife-sharp spine dug into his stomach, frighteningly so. Naruto sagged in his grip instead of fighting and cursing, seeming… no, not tired, just resigned. 'To what?' Kakashi frowned as he felt something wet and warm trickle down his leg, the scent of fresh blood filling his nose.

_Blood…?_ "Where are you bleeding from?" Naruto was silent. "Naruto?" Nothing. He turned him around, slipping his arms out from the hold, but Naruto stood still, hunched over as if he were a puppet with cut strings. Naruto's lips were moving, but he was making no sound, only repeating two words over and over. Kakashi looked closer to see what he was saying.

''My duty.' Huh. Wonder what that means.' He shrugged. "Okay, class dismissed! You can all go do… whatever it is you do, now." Sakura and Sasuke got up from where they were sprawled on the grass, bowed, and walked off, Sakura chattering inanely all the while.

"Hey, Naruto, you want some ramen?" If this failed, there was obviously something wrong. The blond's eyes traveled up his body to finally rest on his face, his gaze tired, wizened, and old. Kakashi felt his breath freeze in his lungs. 'Oh, Iruka, you were right. I _am_ blind.' How had he missed what Naruto truly was? In the end, he was still a child, forlorn and alone, desperate for companionship and love that no one, especially not Kakashi, had truly given him. Naruto shook his head slowly.

"No thanks, Kakashi-sensei. I think I'm going to go home and lie down." Kakashi stood, helpless, watching the student he had never really known or taught turn and limp farther and farther away from him into the gathering darkness.

Confronted with his failure, he could do nothing.

* * *

**Warnings: **This story contains explicit references to rape, sex, and violence. If these are triggers for you, please do not read further.


	2. Chapter 2

"So…" Kakashi scratched his nose through the cloth of his mask, glancing at Iruka before turning his gaze back to the window of Naruto's apartment, watching the blond rock back and forth on his windowsill, his hands curled around a cup of coffee.

"So what?" Iruka said, his legs crossed as he twirled a kunai around one finger.

"So I see Naruto hasn't changed his apartment at all," Kakashi finished lamely, looking back at the chuunin. Iruka cast a pitying, somewhat disgusted glance towards him. "Of course not. None of the shopkeepers will let him buy anything; all he gets is our old castoffs. I doubt even Ino or Sakura could make a nice-looking home out of the crap he gets."

"He's an ANBU and they still treat him like that?" Iruka snorted. "Of course! He's the _Kyuubi_ after all."

"Cynicism doesn't suit you, Iruka."

"Watching the way he gets treated… it's hard not to be cynical." Iruka paused, then stood up in a rustle of cloth. "He's moving." Kakashi glanced over at the window and saw Naruto set down the mug, one hand pressed to his seal and a pained grimace stretching his angular face. Naruto drew the shades, and, dimly, Kakashi could hear the door open.

A black figure limped out onto the street and gasped in pain, steadying himself against the fence as he made his way to the gate of Konoha. Kakashi and Iruka trailed him, the jounin chewing on his lip while casting a few covert glances at Iruka's closed, angry face. Naruto's apartment had been dark and sad, blood stains smeared across the walls and a dirty, out-of-date calendar his only decoration. It was almost… frightening to realize that an ANBU, an elite ninja, was allowed to live like that, like no one cared.

Naruto slipped through a hole in the wall encircling Konoha and trudged into the forest. Kakashi leaped into the branches of a tree and followed him, the soft gleaming of moonlight illuminating his path. For a moment he debated using his Sharingan, then shrugged and moved on, Iruka a silent, unbreathing shadow by his side.

They stopped on the edge of a clearing, where Naruto knelt, a hand bracing him against the ground and his clothes in a neat pile beside him. The stench of blood was thick in the air. Kakashi swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as he beheld something that put Icha Icha Paradise to shame.

The moonlight limned every strand of blond hair, turning it to polished gilt, and the short, thin form was almost… beautiful in the moonlight, whipcord-lean and tough, scarred with the ravages of battle, but skeletal, hips and ribs and spine pushing from the skin as if it were a size too small.

"I know you're there," Naruto finally said, his voice ragged and hoarse with pain. "I don't know why you guys think you need to watch this, but I'm too tired to make you leave." He sagged, "_God,_ I'm so tired." Iruka tried to move forward, but Kakashi blocked him, holding him back.

"Okay, Kyuubi," Naruto breathed. "Okay. You can have what you want, now." Iruka plunged forward with a half-formed shout-

Blood-red chakra formed from nothing, racing outward to form a circle around the clearing, heat pouring from the chakra to pound against Kakashi's skin. This chakra wasn't the chakra of Konoha, strong and subtle like stone and earth; this was fury personified, burning flame and terror. Iruka pounded on the barrier, pulling back with a cry as his skin sizzled and burned. "Naruto!" Kakashi watched, sickness welling in his belly, skin crawling. This was _wrong_, somehow, terrifying and sad.

A cyclone of flame formed as Naruto's back arched, a terrible shriek of pain tearing from his throat. The flame roared, then sucked in on itself, fading. A form strode forward from the fire, and Hatake Kakashi, jounin, cringed.

Red, slitted eyes roved about the clearing, searching, then focused on Naruto. Pale lips drew back in a terrifying, cruel grin, and the beast spoke, his voice like the roar of the flames, only a thousand times worse.

That voice… was hate. Hatred without bounds, without reason.

"Naruto… you know what to do." Kakashi's student unfolded from his crouch and limped to the Kyuubi, then fell to his knees before the proud, unyielding form, settling his hands on the Kyuubi's hips. The fox rested a clawed hand on Naruto's head, his fingers clenching. Blood streamed and dyed blond hair dirty brown. Naruto leaned forward, his mouth opening, and Kakashi turned away.

Away from the soft, wet noises that came from a defiled mouth.

Away from the salt scent of Naruto's tears.

Away from the fox's murmurs and the smell of blood and the way that Naruto sighed raggedly when he was violated in a way that never should have been.

Time passed by as slow as honey, Iruka's babbled curses and sobs fading away to nothing. Kakashi sat with his back to the clearing, a hand pressed to his empty chest that hurt worse then Obito's death had hurt. How long…? How long had Naruto suffered in silence, enslaved to a beast that no one could tame, no one could heal?

The heat from the chakra barrier disappeared, allowing him to turn around and leap down to the scorched earth of the clearing.

Naruto lay curled on his side, bleeding cuts scattered over his back from where the fox had scratched during… he wouldn't think about that. Blood dripped from between his legs. Iruka dropped down beside him and raced over, falling beside Naruto and reaching out, his hand hovering, uncertain, over the dirty blond head. His hand descended, stroking Naruto's hair.

Kakashi stood, helpless, over his student, thoughts chasing each other in circles inside his fogged brain. 'Clothes. Get his clothes.' In a moment, the clothes were in his hands. "He's unconscious," Iruka said roughly. "Give them to me." He did so, and watched as Iruka wrestled the limp form into tattered black pajamas. "I'm taking him home."

He nodded wordlessly and watched as Iruka moved off into the trees, blood trailing in his footsteps. How had this happened? How had he not seen, not _known_? How had he failed so miserably?

He drew a ragged breath.

Then he wished he could cry.

* * *

Naruto came back to himself slowly, opening his eyes to a vision of white. 'Ugh…' The dull ache in his spine intensified when he rolled over, swinging his feet off the bed. He needed a shower desperately, needed to wash the feeling of the fox's hands and mouth off his skin. He needed to brush his teeth, needed… 

"Aaah!" This wasn't his house! The door to the room slammed open, making him jump, and Iruka leaped inside, kunai in hand. The chuunin slowed down when he saw there wasn't anything inside, the kunai disappearing into his vest. Naruto stood, hands dangling limply, by his sides, as his teacher turned to face him, Iruka's eyes quickly filling with tears.

"Naruto," he said, the word full of agony. Naruto froze as Iruka came towards him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

_Hands holding him down, gaggingdrowningthrashing on the_ thing _in his throat_

"Don't touch me!" He barely recognized the voice as his own. Iruka took his hand away, swallowed, grinned weakly. "Of… of course. Do you want ramen?"

"No, my throat hurts too much for that," he said offhandedly, fiddling with the ties on his pants. Iruka's face froze into a mask of pain. 'Oh, _shit_.' "You… you know?" he croaked. Iruka nodded. "Naruto… you could have come to me!" His voice was hurt and confused like Haku's had been. "You could _always_ have come to me!" He was crying now, tears trailing in glimmering streams down the face of one of the people Naruto loved. Naruto had made him cry because he was dirty.

"I'm… sorry?" he ventured. This just made Iruka cry harder. "Oh, jeez, I'll… I'll go get you some coffee or something." He bolted from the room, ignoring the pain in his belly and his jaw and his heart, tormented by the phantom claws of the Kyuubi ranging over his body. Forgetting his words to Iruka, he found the bathroom. Stripping, he turned on the water and stepped in, taking the soap and scrubbing, his skin turning red and raw.

It wasn't clean enough! He choked on a sob and turned the water on higher, watching in stunned fascination the way his skin turned white then red where the burning drops of water touched, the way his skin bubbled up and formed blisters, scrubbing furiously everywhere he could feel the fox's hands roaming, but it still wasn't enough.

He howled his pain and terror and sickness and collapsed onto the floor of the shower, rocking back and forth, clawing at his skin as if he could tear the Kyuubi's marks from him by force. They knew. They knew. They knew how dirty and disgusting and sick he was, they knew what he did to keep them safe, they were going to hate him!

Dimly, through the pain of his burns and the sorrow in his mind, he had a clear thought.

'I'll never be clean again.'


	3. Chapter 3

Gaara no Sabaku, Kazekage of the Village Hidden in the Sand, turned away from the long viewing window that stretched across the eastern side of his office with a frown. The dust storm outside made him restless, but so too did the faint stirrings inside him where Shukaku had once been.

Something was terribly wrong with Naruto Uzumaki, probably dealing with the contract he had with Kyuubi. He could tell; all demon vessels had an intricate link to each other, probably from the fact they both bore the burden of unnatural chakra. He always knew where Naruto was and if he was in danger, and he assumed Naruto knew the same about him. The sand whirled about his feet, sensing his agitation, but he calmed it with a mental touch, sitting back down in his chair, picking up a pen, and staring at the dune of paperwork on his desk.

After reading the same sentence five times over and making no progress in comprehending it, he frowned. This… irritated him, almost as much as his wish to see Naruto again, if only to repay the life-debt. If only to see the one who had made him… feel. 'I'm sick of paperwork.'

The sand flowed under the door in response to his wishes, searching. Gaara set down his pen and steepled his hands in front of his mouth, waiting. The door finally clicked open, admitting Kankuro and Temari, both looking confused and slightly hesitant. He tamped down the flash of hurt at the wary and fearful look in their eyes, reminded all over again of why he had been hated.

"Temari, Kankuro." They jumped at his words like chastised children, than settled, glancing guiltily at each other. "I am leaving for Konoha on a… personal mission. Choose one of you to be Kazekage in my absence. Send messenger birds only if absolutely needed. That is all."

"Gaa-"

He didn't know which one spoke; he had already disappeared in a plume of sand.

* * *

"I found him in the shower. I think he tried to… burn himself clean," Iruka said, standing in the doorway with Kakashi. The jounin nodded, gazing at the fragile spectacle before him. Naruto had burrowed into an armchair, and someone- Iruka?- had cocooned him in blankets, only his head peeking over the top of the nest, glazed blue eyes staring into nothing, looking so small and tired, almost childlike. Kakashi winced; he could imagine how painful the burns he could see on the vessel's face were. He moved over to the younger man, crouching down.

"Naruto?" The blue eyes blinked, then focused on him. Kakashi was captured for a moment by the utter blueness of them, wondering why he had never taken the time to properly appreciate the depths in them. Dimly, he realized that he recognized that shade of blue, but filed that information away to look over later.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto rasped, looking utterly astounded. "What're you doing here?"

"Can't I worry about my students?" He feigned hurt, only to have it become real when Naruto said slowly, "Well, yeah, but… you never have before. You were always with Sasuke-teme or Sakura." Kakashi blinked. 'He's… right? He's right!' For a moment he remembered how Naruto would always come rushing up to him, babbling about something-or-other, and he would ignore him in favor of training the other two, and how that was repeated over and over until Naruto finally just stopped talking to him altogether.

For a moment he struggled to think of something to say, but was saved by Iruka coming in with a cup of tea, pushing it into the surprisingly small hands that emerged from the white blankets. Naruto took a sip, wincing at the pain. Kakashi got up and turned away, staring at the patterns on the wallpaper, turning back only when he heard Iruka sit down, leaning forward and staring solemnly at Naruto.

"I'd like to ask you some questions about what happened in the forest," he said. Naruto gazed at him over the rim of the cup, then set it down on the side table. "Okay, go for it."

"How long has that been going on?" Naruto shifted uncomfortably, mumbling something. "Can you repeat that?" Naruto looked up, blushing from shame, as he ground out, "Since I was thirteen." Kakashi closed his eye in sorrow. Seven years… seven years of quiet, stoically borne suffering, and no one, least of all him, had noticed. He felt Iruka's chakra spike in rage, but the chuunin controlled himself and continued.

"Does anyone else know about this?"

"Tsunade knows I made a contract with Kyuubi, but she doesn't know the terms. Gaara-"

"Gaara, the other vessel?" Naruto nodded slowly. "Yeah. He knows everything." He picked up the cup and took another sip of tea. Iruka rubbed at his forehead, sighing. "Okay. You mentioned a contract?" Naruto grinned, a hint of his old exuberance shining through.

"Yup! I conned Kyuubi into signing a contract giving me access to his chakra at all times after the Valley of the End."

"What were the terms?" The smile flickered and dimmed. Naruto shrugged, curling tighter around himself. "If he gave me constant access, he got to have me." He slumped forward. "At first, it was only once a month. Then around the time I turned sixteen, it started to be once a week. 'Cause of the seal weakening, you know?" Iruka's voice was soft.

"How often is it now?" Naruto looked up, his eyes old, wise, and tired. "It's been every night for the past three months. That's why I can't sleep," he gestured to the rings around his eyes, "since if Kyuubi wants to bad enough, he can force my body out to the forest anyway, and that-" something flickered in his gaze, "really hurts."

"Why didn't you _tell_ anyone!" Iruka finally exploded, springing up from his chair and pacing back and forth. "Did you think no one would believe you? Did you think we would laugh at you?" Iruka froze as something occurred to him, then he was across the room and staring at Naruto desperately, quivering. "My _god_, don't tell me you thought we wouldn't _care?_" Naruto stared up at him, eyes wide. Iruka swallowed, trembling. "I- I think I need to go lie down," he said faintly, turning away and heading to his bedroom.

Kakashi pushed off the wall, fiddling for a moment with the book in his pocket. "Is there anything I can get you?" Naruto glanced at him. "Oh. Yeah, can you get the old hag? My burns aren't healing, and I'd really like to not end up too scarred." Kakashi turned away, only to whirl around, shuriken in hand, as sand flared in the corner.

He watched, silent, as the sand died down, exposing the Kazekage, the younger man's light green eyes focusing immediately on Naruto, who sat up, grinning, and extended a hand to him. The sand trickled back into the gourd as Gaara crossed the room to take Naruto's hand, grasping it lightly. For a moment the two vessels stared at each other, messages flying back and forth faster then thought, as if they possessed their own wavelength.

Kakashi, watching, suddenly understood the crushing isolation that imprisoned them both; Naruto, hated since birth, unsure of welcome or caring, so much so that he couldn't tell anyone he was being raped but the other vessel; Gaara, born to be a killing machine, betrayed by his family. He turned away and walked out of Iruka's house, then teleported to the Hokage residence, tripped over the pig, and stumbled up to Tsunade's bedroom door, guarded by two ANBU.

"Ah, Sasuke, so nice to see you," he said cheerfully. His former student rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Kakashi-sensei. Go on in; she's probably awake from Tonton's clatter, anyway."

"Appreciated." Kakashi nodded to the Hyuuga- Neji- and entered the room, bowing to the rumpled Hokage, her blonde hair sticking out everywhere, who stared at him with a sort of irritated bewilderment.

"Is it Akatsuki? Is it a Sound attack? Is it Orochimaru?" At Kakashi's head-shake, she growled. "Then _don't _wake me up! I've got to have my beauty sleep, you know-"

"It's Naruto," Kakashi interjected, counting on her affection for the boy. Tsunade blinked. "Naruto? What'd that little shit do now?" Kakashi grinned underneath his mask at Tsunade's bluntness, than sobered. "He didn't do anything, Hokage-sama. He's badly injured, and specifically requested you to see to him." However tired the Hokage looked before, she shook it off and became a whirlwind of energy, bustling about the room and collecting her medical kit, slinging it over her shoulder. "Okay, let's go. Where is he?"

"He's at Iruka's house with the Kazekage right now." Kakashi held the door open, then followed her. "Gaara? What's he doing here?" Tsunade turned around as the two ANBU made an attempt to follow, snapping, "I have to attend to a very important patient right now, so you two are going to stay here and guard the door, got it?"

"Hokage-sama, our orders are to watch you at all times," Sasuke explained slowly, as if to a petulant child. "Hang the orders! Naruto's not going to-"

"Naruto?" Surprisingly, it was Neji who spoke. Sasuke said nothing, but the stubborn gleam in his eyes was enough. Tsunade growled. "Ugh, fine! Kakashi, teleport us over there, would you?"

"Right away, Hokage-sama." Kakashi sighed internally. 'Forgive me, Naruto.' With a few quick seals, they were standing in Iruka's front yard, the street quiet under the rising sun. Tsunade hitched her bag up and climbed up the steps, opening the door. Kakashi followed, the two ANBU silent behind him. They all paused at the spectacle when they turned the corner into the living room, shocked into stillness.

Gaara of the Sand sat on the couch with Naruto's head resting in his lap, the pale, long-fingered hands- an artist's hands- sifting through blond hair, an almost peaceful picture. Kakashi squashed the twinge of jealousy in his gut. Gaara looked up, his gaze cold and poisonous, than spoke in his slow, quietly threatening way, "He's resting." Naruto rolled over, opening eyes dark with exhaustion and focusing on Tsunade. "Hi, old hag." He caught sight of the two ANBU, his eyes narrowing. "Kakashi-sensei, can you make them leave the room?"

"Sure." Sasuke and Neji left quickly under Tsunade's threatening glare, Kakashi noticed. "Remove your shirt, please, Naruto," Tsunade said briskly, settling down by the couch, "and tell me what exactly the problem is." Naruto flinched, but sat up and worked his shirt off over his head, the scores on his back breaking open and bleeding afresh. Gaara stared at the trickle of blood impassively, took Naruto's shirt, and made a thin layer of sand cover Iruka's cushions- to keep the blood from soaking in, probably.

Tsunade made an odd clicking low in her throat when she saw Naruto's dangerously thin torso, his ribs thrusting out from the razor-sharp line of his spine. As she reached over to trail a finger over one of the scrapes, he shuddered under her hand, biting down on his lip in an attempt to stay quiet. "Okay, Naruto, just hold still. How come you didn't use Kyuubi's chakra to heal like you always do?"

"Well…" Naruto fidgeted, jumping when Tsunade flicked him on the nose. "Okay, okay! You know the contract I made with Kyuubi?" At her nod, he continued, "Well, the contract says that in return for getting access to his chakra, he gets time in a body made of chakra outside me. Tonight was one of his nights, so he drained all of it to make his body. Stupid bastard fox…" 'Stop lying, Naruto,' Kakashi thought, twitching when Gaara's frightening gaze locked on him.

Tsunade made a non-committal noise, then took her hands away, exposing a pale back free of scars. "All done there. Turn your face this way…" As she healed Naruto, Kakashi continued his staring match with Gaara. The Kazekage had striking features- one could say he was beautiful, in a lean and dangerous way- but Kakashi didn't really have time to linger on that, not when Gaara's eyes were clearly expressing 'hurt him and you die.'

Tsunade stood up, dusting her hands off. "You're too thin, Naruto! How do you eat all that ramen crap and not get fat! What's your secret?" Naruto grinned. "Lots and lots of training, of course!"

"Sure, brat. Don't tear down the village with the Kazekage, okay? I've got way too much paperwork to deal with as it is!" She turned away and picked up her bag, passing by Kakashi on the way to the foyer. Kakashi followed her, laid a hand on her shoulder, and directed her into the kitchen, ignoring the ANBU slouching against the porch railing.

"Hokage-sama, Naruto wasn't telling you the whole truth-"

"Don't you think I know that?" Tsunade closed her eyes, pressing the heel of her hand into her forehead. "He looks so awful! I should've noticed how thin he is; I have access to records of ANBU uniform check-outs, I should have realized how many small ones he was taking out."

"Didn't you notice any of the other scarring?" Tsunade looked up. "There wasn't anything in his torso, Kakashi, and I didn't check his lower body. What kind of scarring do you mean?" Kakashi wanted to read Icha Icha Paradise desperately, he could feel the pages calling to him, offering a convenient escape; explaining the sexual abuse of his student for seven years wasn't his cup of tea.

"The, uh… rectal scarring," he temporized. Tsunade stared at him blankly, repeating, "Rectal…?" He could see the moment the truth hit her, when she paled and put a hand to her mouth, looking nauseous. She swallowed once, twice, then lowered her hand, fire in her eyes. "Who-did-this?" Her voice shook with fury.

"Hokage-sama-"

"_Who?_" Kakashi gazed directly into her eyes as he replied, "The Kyuubi, Hokage-sama. The contract Naruto signed with him allowed the Kyuubi access to his body, and since the seal has been weakened, the rapes have been happening more and more often." Tsunade began to tremble, bringing her hands up to her mouth, eyes wide with horror and pain. "He- he-" A low moan escaped her.

"He didn't have to do this for us!" Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, Hokage-sama?" Inwardly, he was seething. 'So help me if I find out you had a role in this, your power will not be enough to save you.' Tsunade reached out, gripped Iruka's table, splintering it in the process, and said hollowly,

"The only reason I allowed him to make a contract with the Kyuubi is that he did it to protect the village. He told me that he had been given a gift to protect those he cared about, and that if he had constant access, he could protect Sasuke, Sakura-" the word 'you' was left unspoken, and Kakashi was grateful.

"And you didn't ask him what were the terms!"

"No. No, I didn't. I thought that if he was strong enough to beat the Uchiha prodigy in a one-on-one fight, he was strong enough to handle anything. I guess… I didn't want to know." She swallowed, steeling herself, then stood up straighter, taking control. "Who knows about this?"

"Gaara, Iruka, and myself."

"Okay. This knowledge is going to be kept confidential. If anyone asks where Naruto is, say he was injured on a secret mission and is recuperating at Iruka's house. Stress that he is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. If Naruto decides to tell anyone of what's happened to him, that's his decision to make. As of now, he's off active duty until I think him fit to return. If you need me, you can send one of your nin-dogs, right?" At Kakashi's nod, she sighed.

"That stupid, noble little shit. All he ever does is deny himself for the sake of others, for the village that's scorned and hated him since birth. He'd die if he thought it'd make Konoha safer, you know?" Her mouth firmed into a thin, hard line. "Well, now it's our chance to do something for him. Would you mind guarding him until he's back on his feet?" Kakashi smiled.

"I doubt Gaara's going to let much get to Naruto, either, but sure. I'd be happy to." Tsunade released the table and picked up her bag. "Okay. I'm heading to the Tower, so keep watch over him. I'll expect a report on his health soon!" Kakashi saluted mockingly as she left the house, the door swinging shut behind her.

* * *

Neji Hyuuga deactivated the Byakugan, thankful for his ANBU mask to hide the use of his bloodline ability. 'Naruto… why must you keep doing this for us? Has Fate ordained that you must suffer for our sins, to protect those who hate you?' He sighed, ignoring Uchiha's searching gaze. He did not need to know.

'Naruto Uzumaki… I do not envy you your destiny.'


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This is just a note to thank you all for your reviews and inform you all that there won't be an update for two weeks; I'm going to be at summer camp. If I get a chance to work on it at all over the break, I will, so that you can read the next chapter as soon as possible. Oh, and to Spoon no Miko and catc10, thanks for correcting the title (I'm only in my first year of Latin). The words 'Dulce Et Decorum Pro Patria Mori' actually mean 'it is sweet and appropriate to die for the fatherland.' As for the rest of the reviewers, thank you, but please, please give me constructive criticism. I'm here to improve, not just get praised, although that's nice. Tell me what you liked and didn't like about this chapter, please. Enjoy!

* * *

"Hey, Gaara," Naruto sing-songed, blue eyes gleaming in the half-light from the dawning sun, "Whatcha thinking 'bout?" Gaara blinked, but answered,

"I don't understand why what happened to you is so awful. Does this… does that make me a bad person?" Naruto plucked at his shirt- he had grabbed it and put it on as soon as Tsunade left, uncomfortable with being so exposed- sighed, then looked up, smiling gently. "Nah, just confused. I guess…" The Kyuubi vessel snorted, rolling over onto his stomach. "You know, it's kinda weird: I feel like I can tell you anything, 'cause you don't have any prejudices." Gaara inclined his head in encouragement, finding that he actually enjoyed the feeling of being trusted; even his siblings didn't trust him, afraid to be around him for long periods of time. Naruto inhaled, then said,

"Okay, let's see if I can explain why everyone's freaking out. You know how, um… stuff like that works, right?" Gaara wrinkled his nose at the mention; Kankuro, blushing furiously, had given him a short and incredibly abortive explanation when he was younger, but cut it off when he got a nosebleed. Regardless, he felt that he had a somewhat comprehensive understanding of it, despite his low opinion of the activity. "Yes."

"Well, see-" Naruto swallowed, rocking back and forth, unable to say the words, "it's supposed to be 'fun.' Without getting too girly, it kinda shows you trust the other person enough to do-" he made a wavy motion with his hand, "-that."

"And this was a betrayal of your trust?" Naruto pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping thin, scarred arms around his legs. Gaara instinctively recognized the posture as that of a wounded animal, and felt the emptiness inside him howl in kinship. "Not really. I never trusted Kyuubi. I mean, did _you_ trust Shukaku? It was really… it's made me lose faith in myself, in my own power to protect myself."

"You're too soft." Gaara's voice was flat, non-judgmental, a simple statement of fact. "I could feel it when you killed others. It hurt. You were never meant for war. You took no joy in their deaths like I did. All I felt was an extensive, deep sadness, like you were killing them along with yourself." Naruto glanced at him, then chuckled. "You know, for such a quiet guy, you make some really good observations!

But anyway, it just hurt, you know? It hurt because it was my decision to have Kyuubi do that to me, so I could protect my village from enemies, so I wouldn't ever fail anyone ever again like I failed Sasuke. I just wish…" he swallowed hard, then sniffled, tears welling in the ocean-blue eyes. "I just wish that I could have someone touch me without feeling _him_, that I could sleep without worrying that I'll wake in the forest with him inside me." The tears trailed down his face while Gaara watched, fascinated. He had never cried after Yashamaru died, despising it as weakness, as a show of something that was unneeded for his existence.

He reached out, wanting to feel tears again. Naruto's head swung around to face him, still smiling. "And now I'm crying, see?" The blond leaned forward, slowly, slowly, until his cheek finally rested in Gaara's cupped hand, wet warmth spreading over Gaara's palm, Naruto's breathing rapid and ragged as he fought to keep from flinching. "Don't cry," Gaara said, surprised to hear himself speaking. "Don't cry, Naruto."

"But I have to cry," Naruto told him, blue eyes half-shut as he clenched his fists, trembling as if he was trying to prove something to Kyuubi, to prove that he was not broken. Gaara stared at him, feeling pleasure at the simple skin-to-skin contact (unexpected as rain, a sudden knowledge that _this_ was what he had been looking for all his life without ever knowing what it was he was searching for) tingling and dancing up his nerves to buzz in his skull. "I have to cry because that's all that's left for me." He finally leaned away from Gaara's hand, leaving Gaara with only phantom feelings and a twinge of regret.

"It is not all that's left," he told him. Naruto gazed at him, snorted, put a hand behind his head and scratched. "Really? What else do I have?" Gaara paused. What else was there? Friends- no, for true friends would know his secret, and until they did and stayed regardless they were not true friends; family- he had never had any; love- Gaara didn't know what love was, but he knew what it was not, and the not-love was what he saw directed at Naruto. But he had nothing, as well. No friends, no family (his siblings did not care for him, and indeed preferred talking to anyone else rather than him), no love, no respect (not even the Kazekage position brought him that, it only increased others' fear).

"You have me," he said finally. Naruto blinked. "You can't stay here, you're Kazekage!" Gaara smiled slightly. "And I have found that being Kazekage has brought me nothing." He felt the truth of the words, felt them vibrate through his body to hum and sing in his bones as the sand sang at night. Naruto was the only one who understood him, who spoke to him and cared for him, who… trusted him. "I will give up the Kazekage position," he continued, "to Temari. The people of Suna have always preferred her to me, and I'd…" he ducked his head, staring at the way the sand drifted quietly through his toes, "I would rather stay with you. You are the only one who makes me feel human."

He peered up through the fringe of blood-red hair at Naruto, watching his face go through several different emotions: shock, disbelief, a sort of desperate hope, then the blond's face settled into a wide, joyous grin. "Really?"

"Yes." Naruto whooped, leaping off the couch and limping around the room, making plans. "Awesome! I'll have to move to a larger apartment-" he stopped. "If you want to live with me?" Gaara, looking at the pathetically hopeful expression on his face, could not find it in himself to refuse. "Of course. I would find any other option disgusting."

"I don't think the old hag will be too happy to let you stay with me," Naruto said as he plopped back down on the couch, trailing blankets behind him. "She will," Gaara said, confident. He would make her let him. Naruto sank back into the cushions, letting his head loll onto the armrest. "Hey, Gaara, how did you keep yourself from falling asleep? I've only been doing this for three months, and it really, really sucks!" Gaara shrugged, looking at the dark rings around Naruto's eyes, uncomfortable at seeing something so personal on someone else, even if it was Naruto.

"I read books and trained."

"But books are so _boring_!" Both of them looked up as they heard Umino coming down the stairs, his eyes red and swollen from crying.

"Naruto…?" The blond trudged across the room to stand before Umino, looking up at him. Gaara, uncomfortable with such blatant displays of love, looked away, hearing only the quiet sound of Naruto's apologies and Umino's vehement denials that he had done anything wrong.

"You could never do anything that would make me love you less, Naruto," the chuunin said quietly. "When I befriended you I made a commitment, to you and to myself, to love you, to be your friend and teacher, and nothing, not even what the Kyuubi has done, could make me love you _any_ less." He heard a thick silence and glanced out of the corner of his eye: Naruto had extended a hand towards Umino's face, fingers trembling as he brushed them over the scarred nose, before he snatched his hand back to his chest, swallowing. "Thanks." Naruto's voice was surprisingly small and sad, and Gaara found himself missing the loud joy of a few moments earlier.

"Kazekage, would you mind giving Naruto and I a few moments to ourselves?" Gaara inclined his head and stood, hoisting his gourd onto his back and walking out into the foyer, closing the living room door behind him. He looked up, up, up into Hatake Kakashi's masked face, faintly registering his own surprise at how tall the infamous Copy Ninja was. The silver-haired man's visible eye was dull, lips moving under the navy blue cloth as he asked,

"How is he?" Gaara searched for words to properly convey the sense of sadness and fear that stained Naruto's blue eyes. "Tired," he finally said. "Tired, huh," Hatake echoed, seeming to slump even further, as if guilty of some unpardonable sin. "Tell me, Gaara," the tall man breathed his name like a sigh, some sort of blessing, "does he hate me?" Gaara frowned, unsettled at the way the man's black eye probed his, searching.

"I do not think that he possesses the ability to truly hate anyone," he said in an attempt to be diplomatic. Hatake laughed hoarsely. "You're probably right. I've been given a mission from the Hokage, and I'd be honored if you'd join me in it."

"What is the mission?"

"To protect Naruto." Gaara didn't need to think about the answer: it had always been there, only enhanced by their present circumstances and the debt that he still owed the other vessel. "Yes, Hatake-san." His eyes narrowed. "Why do you care for him?" Hatake started, then put a hand behind his head, eye curving into a smile. His voice was bitter when he answered,

"I was his teacher."

"You were his teacher? Where were you when he won against me in the Chuunin exams?" Hatake tried to speak, but Gaara cut him off, white-hot fury rising in his belly at Hatake's betrayal of his student, betrayal like Yashamaru's betrayal, bitter and cold, "Where were you when he nearly died against Uchiha?" Gaara smirked sadistically. "Oh, that's right. You were too busy taking care of your precious Uchiha, the boy who betrayed you and your village, too busy to care for the person who let himself be _raped_ for his friends!" His voice was poisonous. "Don't tell me that you were his teacher."

He turned away and left the house for the Hokage tower, feeling Hatake's black gaze boring into his back all the way.

* * *

Kakashi stared after the Kazekage's retreating form for a while; did everyone know what a failure he was? He closed his eye, leaning against the wall as he thought about Naruto's blue, blue eyes. So familiar, but the knowledge dangled tantalizingly just out of reach, taunting him. He looked out the window, restless gaze skipping over the rooftops to land on the Hokage monument.

'Oh god.' Blue as cornflowers, blue as sky or ocean, golden as tarnished brass or sunlight on water- How hadn't he recognized it? How hadn't he connected the hyperactivity, the ramen addiction, the genius for battle?

'Arashi-sensei's son… Yondaime's son?' His fingers curled into fists as he slid down the wall to end up curled in a miserable ball, tracing the long scar across his palm that his teacher had given him. He had failed, failed his teacher, failed his student, failed his comrade. He had broken his own code. By his own rules, he was now worse then scum.

'Arashi-sensei, you must hate me,' he thought, staring into nothingness, remembering his teacher's manic grin and the way he'd punch him on the head for being too serious. Nausea roiled in his gut, his sudden self-loathing dancing on the edge of physical pain. He couldn't bear the thought of Naruto hating him, despite Gaara's words, couldn't bear the thought of those blue, beautiful eyes staring at him helplessly, asking 'why does it hurt so much?' Couldn't bear the thought of his own ignorance consigning his teacher's son to suffering for the rest of his years.

He had failed twice over. He had failed Sasuke, and Naruto had repaired that failure. He had failed his teacher and his student, but Naruto couldn't repair this, couldn't escape from the abuse alone. He firmed his jaw and stood, uncurling his hands.

'On my honor as a shinobi of Konoha, I will not fail him a second time, Arashi-sensei. I swear it.'

* * *

Naruto opened the door to the hallway, trembling slightly. He _hated_ this! He _hated_ not being able to give Iruka hugs, hated not being able to take comfort in his teacher's embrace like he had always done. Even just _touching_ Iruka was hard, bringing visions of the Kyuubi's claws raking across his face, splitting skin and muscle to expose his jaw, like the fox had done once. Now that they knew how dirty he was, he couldn't touch them. He'd make them dirty, too. He stopped, blinking at Kakashi's intense gaze, then flushed, looking down.

"Naruto," he looked up, and found himself ensnared in the pool of darkness, "I know that this doesn't really help make up for the way I treated you, but for what it's worth… I'm sorry." Naruto blinked again. His teacher was apologizing to _him_, the bastard vessel?

"That's okay, Kakashi-sensei," he answered. "There's nothing to apologize for." Uncomfortable with the faintly possessive tinge to Kakashi's gaze, he turned away and began limping toward the staircase.

He stiffened, gasping, as strong arms wrapped loosely about his waist, Kakashi picking him up with an arm underneath his knees, holding him close to his chest as he began to climb the stairs. Naruto squeezed his eyes shut against the horrible feeling of Kyuubi crawling around in him, clapping his hands to his ears as he tried to shut out the fox's grating laughter. 'Stopit stopit nononono-' He felt words rumble in Kakashi's chest, bringing him back from visions of bloody eyes and gaping jaws-

"It's okay, Naruto. It's okay, just look at me, look at me." Naruto opened his eyes and tilted his head back, staring into Kakashi's visible gray eye, curved in worry, letting his hands curl into his former teacher's jounin vest, the drumbeat of Kakashi's heart grounding him in reality. Kakashi nudged open the door and carried him inside, carefully setting him down on the bed. Naruto disentangled his hands, staring at the floor. "Thanks," he mumbled, glancing up. Kakashi smiled underneath the mask, "Anytime."

"Sorry I-" he gestured helplessly, "got you dirty." Kakashi's eye narrowed into an angry, pained slit. "Naruto," his voice was a sigh, "you've done _nothing_ wrong. You were just the victim; it wasn't your fault. Oh, before I forget, the Hokage has taken you off active duty until you recover." He nodded tiredly, rubbing at his eyes. "I'll let you sleep," Kakashi said, patting him on the thigh and getting up. Naruto watched him take a step towards the door, only to whip around decisively. Naruto closed his eyes at the unexpected movement, expecting pain.

Instead he felt cool, dry lips brush lightly across his forehead in a caress, his teacher's gloved hand touching his fingers. The lips left, and he opened his eyes in time to see Kakashi pulling his mask back up. The silver-haired jounin smiled at him, "Sleep well," and left. Naruto resisted the urge to yell that he couldn't sleep, 'cause Kyuubi might want him!

Naruto pulled the shades to the room, blocking the morning sunlight, and moved himself underneath the covers, pulling it up to his chin and folding his arms under his head. He rolled over and stared towards the door that Kakashi went out of, chewing on his lip pensively.

When Kakashi had held him close, his heart beating strongly and comforting words rumbling in his chest, Naruto had almost, for once in his life, felt…

Safe.

* * *

'Damn it, damn it, damn it!' Kakashi ran his hands through his hair again, resisting the urge to pace around the room. Why the _hell_ had he done that! The man was a _rape victim_ for God's sake and he'd fucking _kissed _him! He leaned against the wall, rubbing his forehead. 'Smooth move, Hatake, now he probably thinks you want to rape him too.'

He sighed, missing the feel of Naruto's warm weight leaning against his chest. He hadn't meant to do that, but Naruto had looked so innocent-tempting-tired with his blond hair tousled and drooping in his eyes, blue eyes trusting and filled with an honesty that was all-too-rare in the world of the shinobi.

Sighing again, he removed his book, flipping to his bookmarked page. He just had to be careful of Naruto, careful not to let himself get too close.

Because he couldn't take being broken again.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: As for the pairings, this is going to be a threesome. Also, to the reviewer who said that I should have warned about this story being yaoi, I do not adhere to the double standard of warning for homosexual pairings while leaving heterosexual pairings unwarned, as though somehow the former is more 'offensive'. Either way, I see both as romance, whether between different or identical genders. If people start warning for romance in heterosexual stories, then I'll start warning that my stories contain relationships with manly men in the full bloom of their manliness doing manly things with each other. Manly manly manly.

This chapter was betaed by the wonderful AisCrim.

* * *

Gaara looked down at the map the Hokage had hastily scribbled for him, to the rented house that he, Naruto, and Hatake would be staying in, then up at the house. Apparently she thought that having them all in the same house would make the mission easier or some such nonsense. No matter; it was serviceably white and shuttered, with a small garden in front.

"K-k-kazekage?"

He turned to see a violently pink-haired girl staring at him, green eyes wide with fear. Haruno. He made a small noise of acknowledgement. Haruno swallowed, hands fisted on her medical bag, looking ready to bolt. "Umm, if you don't mind me asking… how come you're in Konoha?" Gaara stared at her. Should he answer? Deciding to err on the side of courtesy, he answered,

"I am repaying a debt."

"Ah." She shifted nervously. "Ha- Have you seen Naruto around? I haven't seen him since yesterday." Gaara blinked, remembering the rote speech the Hokage had told him to say.

"He was injured on a mission and is currently recuperating. He is not allowed to receive visitors."

Haruno squeaked at his terseness, making Gaara blink again. Perhaps he should retire to a different location, as all he seemed to be doing here was frightening her.

"I should go." He lifted one hand in an abortive wave, and then was gone in a whirl of sand. He rematerialized in the foyer of Iruka's whitewashed house, which was surprisingly quiet for seven in the morning, bright golden beams of light filtering through the windows to swirl on the butter-yellow wooden floors. Where was Naruto? For a moment he looked in the living room, then focused on his intangible bond to the other vessel, following it up the stairs and turning into the darkened room.

Blue eyes gleamed in the shadows, Naruto himself sprawled across his bed, staring blindly at the ceiling.

"Oh, Gaara. Come on in."

Gaara did as he said, undoing the straps that held his gourd and settling the container in the corner, before pulling a chair up to sit beside Naruto's bed.

"You should sleep."

Naruto snorted, rolling over onto his stomach to stare at Gaara, one arm dangling off the edge of the mattress.

"Come on, Gaara. You know as well as I do that I can't sleep; Kyuubi might want me, and even if he doesn't, I don't want to have any more nightmares."

Gaara glanced down at his hands, forehead wrinkling. A nightmare; a dream that was unpleasant. He had never experienced one, or a dream in the first place. But Naruto, he of the ramen and the idealism, couldn't do what he had done, couldn't exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. Even sand beetles and birds were supposed by some to dream. "I will watch you and wake you if anything happens," he offered. Naruto looked up at him, his eyes bruised and skin pale, blood-dark markings circling the blue, blue eyes.

"A- Are you sure?" His voice trembled, and for a moment Gaara felt pity for this bird-fragile creature, brutalized beyond endurance. He didn't answer in words; rather, he reached over and picked up Naruto's hand, stroking a thumb across the back, over the fluttering pulse, before setting it back down, unsure as to why he did it, but knowing that it was somehow right.

Naruto smiled then, blinding as sunlight reflecting off sand, and, shaking, reached out, laying a quick hand on Gaara's knee. "Thanks." Gaara felt his lips twitch into a smile at that, and Naruto rolled over and closed his eyes, a simple gesture of trust. There was nothing more that needed to be said.

* * *

_Naruto opened his eyes._

_Then he wished that he could shut them again._

_The skyline was on fire, the blackened sky washed in a red haze, the buildings slumped and leering, the Hokage monument shattered and blasted to bits, and Konoha, home to screaming and laughter and tears, was silent but for the roar of the flames._

_He pivoted, swallowing, trying to ignore the cold lapping of blood at the toes of his boots. Corpses._

_So… many. There was movement in the corner of his eye, and he whipped around to stare at the blue-veined form of Shukaku, the tanuki wheezing a sort of perverse greeting to him, reaching out with bloodied claws to tear and rend and-_

_He wrenched free from his paralyzed state and bolted, ducking into the shadows of an alleyway, panting. A scraping noise made him turn, thick, cold fear welling into his throat as he gagged, scrambling backwards. Sakura's rotting corpse shambled towards him as if just learning to walk, white and hanging face writhing like a devil's sick of sin, green eyes dull, nose writhing with maggots that fell like sickening drops of sweat, one pale arm outstretched as she coughed wetly._

_A cat walked beside her, black flames springing from its gray skin and cooking everything it touched, crawling like a spreading bruise over the wooden fences. The cat- Nibi-Neko (two-tailed cat)- flicked its tails, yowling, the sound like glass dragged across a chalkboard. Sakura took another step, and her dry fingers brushed over Naruto's nose, lips rotted away and teeth bared in a red snarl. He screamed and ran again, leaping onto the rooftops and heading for the river, hoping beyond hope that somehow the water would hold life, would hold fish and algae and anything, anything other then this barren world._

_But the river held nothing._

_Nothing but a blue-black shark that rose from the water, obsidian eyes staring into him, three tails thrashing, the water of the stream rising in a wave, changing as it did so to blood, boiling and smelling of iron, that crashed towards him with the destructive force of a landslide. It swallowed him with ease, tossing him around inside the burning liquid like a rag-doll in a hurricane, blistering and-_

_And the waters receded, leaving him staring into the terrifyingly poisonous gaze of a green-scaled rooster sitting on his chest, its four tails tipped with venomous stingers that whipped towards him with lethal speed, plunging through his armored chest as though it were no more than paper, tearing through skin. He could feel the stingers piercing his heart, could see the demon grin, forked tongue flickering forward to taste him, before he screamed and pushed it off, throwing himself onto his feet and stumbling away, a hand held to his chest as he felt burning poison spread through him._

_A flash of white caught his eye, a slavering white dog bounding through the maze of alleys and bodies after him, red eyes glowing with hellish fire, five bushy tails waving. The corpses appeared to move, to rise to their feet, but Naruto knew they were illusions the Hoko had created, knew that no matter how much he wished or hoped or dreamed they were dead, all dead, because of him. Crackling alerted him to a new terror; he slid to a stop, feeling his heart pound in his chest, pain spreading like water across paper, staring upward._

_Blue lightning whirled through the air above him, slashed like swords through the black sky, forming the mane of the Rokubi, the electric-blue six-tailed weasel fairly grinning as it swiped at him, lightning following in its wake, catching him on the thigh and sizzling, burning as he fell to one knee, bracing himself against the ground as he glared into the molten eyes in determination. The Rokubi appeared pleased, hissing, its voice the crackling of lightning and the booming of thunder. A shriek made it back away, shrinking and fading once more into the darkness, although Naruto knew that the retreat meant nothing._

_Naruto stared up as a black shadow passed over the blood-red moon, white eyes staring down at him as the shadow banked, seven plumes following its movements as the bat stooped towards him, baring gleaming fangs, another shriek bursting from its throat, a jagged wail of pain and terror and unholy glee, the powerful wings beating once more, dust stirring to cover the dead streets as the bat came closer and closer and closer. Talons tore into his shoulder as Shichibi passed over him, ripping tendons and bone free with a sucking groan. He screamed. The bat echoed his scream, flipping in the sky and catching a thermal, borne up on the rising air to cover the moon once more._

_The ground shook as something moved into view. Black scales shone dimly in the dusty light, eight tails dragging behind the dragon, copper eyes glaring at Naruto, fangs dripping blood. An arm hung from one of the many teeth, and he recognized it. The cursed seal… Sasuke. He spat at the dragon, who raised a giant claw and slashed downward, impassive reptilian face closing in on him, while he turned his face upwards and waited for the end, which never came. Something galvanized him, made him throw himself out from under the heavy weight and pelt into the alley, heading for the shattered remains of the Hokage Monument, although he didn't know why._

_When he stumbled to a stop on the cracked stone, he knew why. Red hair gleamed in the light, the whole shattered expanse of the broken world stretched out before them both. He slowed, shoved his working hand in his pocket, ignoring the way his leg threatened to buckle under him and his arm hung limply, walking to stand beside the other. Artic amber eyes glanced at him, nine tails waving sinuously, fanged mouth open in a gaping grin. The Kyuubi spoke._

_"This… is your world."_

_He said nothing. The Kyuubi continued. "Your world between a bloody earth and a bloody sky, here, at the end of all things. The world that you created."_

_"No." The fox scoffed, turning to gaze back out at the village where the eight demons rampaged, tearing and howling and slashing to pieces._

_"This is your world, because you and I both know that one day, you will fail in your duty. You will refuse me, refuse the contract, refuse your duty, and all of this will come to pass." He felt the Kyuubi smile. "What a wonderful world your father saved for you." A clawed hand grabbed his, and fire sprang from wherever the Kyuubi touched, but he refused to cry out, turning to face the fox, who loomed closer and closer, amber eyes swallowing up everything around them._

_"Welcome to the inevitable future." Naruto broke away, feeling a scream of fury and denial tear from his throat, and leaped onto the fox, working hand tangling in red hair and yanking the pliant head down, smashing it again and again against the rock, relishing the sick sound of bone and flesh splintering against the assault, sobbing for breath as he pulled his hand away and smashed in the relentlessly smiling mouth, tearing the face to pieces, while the fox's mouth moved mechanically, speaking without lips or tongue or teeth,_

_"Your world, your world, your world-"_

_Until all that was left was a red smear on the rocks, something that had once been alive, now reduced to blood and bone and fragments. Naruto rocked back onto his heels, staring at his blood-dyed hands, the Kyuubi's words reverberating inside his head louder and louder and louder._

_He began to scream, and he never stopped.

* * *

_

He bolted upright in his bed, clawing at the air, gasping for breath, guttering, choking, drowning. With a mumbled curse, he twisted to scrabble under his bed, grasping for the cold metal of his bucket, bringing it out just in time to puke. He gagged on the taste, bitter as cancer, his throat and eyes burning, face sticky with salty tear tracks. A gentle hand tangled in his hair, making him spasm further at the memory of pain, and lifted his head to place a mug of water by him before leaving.

"Drink it." The voice was Gaara's, deep and slow, and at the familiar voice Naruto felt the wounded child inside him uncurl just a bit. He reached for the cup and washed his mouth out, spitting the residue into the bucket, before setting the cup down and sitting up further, drawing his knees to his chest.

"Thanks," he said hoarsely. "How long?" Gaara, with the empathy that vessels shared, understood the undeveloped question and answered,

"Twenty minutes."

He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, flexing his fingers to make sure that there weren't any dry flakes of brown dropping off with each twitch.

"Better than anything else, I guess. Hey, have you eaten yet?"

Gaara nodded, motioning to a small plate of liver by the door.

"Liver?" He shook his head, grinning. "Never would've figured you for that. I'd think you'd be eating dates or some crap like that." He paused as Gaara raised his head, green eyes boring a hole in him.

"You were screaming about your duty. What did you mean?" He flinched.

"Heh, really? It was-" he was cut off by Gaara's knowing gaze, simple and clear. "Can you get Kakashi-sensei in here? I don't really want to keep repeating myself over and over, you know?" Sand slithered under the door, then returned as the knob turned, Kakashi poking his head in.

"Yo. You needed me?" Gaara gestured him in. Naruto's teacher took a position by the door, slumping against the wall, visible eye fixing on him. Naruto glanced down at his hands, twiddling his fingers like Hinata.

"So, I talked about a contract. Well, the contract isn't all of it." Dimly, he heard Kakashi take a breath. He smiled. "See, the contract says that I get all of Kyuubi's chakra to myself, and he doesn't get access to it except at night, to make himself a body. The reason I needed Kyuubi's chakra…" he trailed off, rubbing at his face, feeling the trails of tears brush against his palm.

"Yes?" Kakashi prompted. He blinked, looking up. Gaara and Kakashi met his gaze evenly, curiosity held back, Kakashi's book dangling from one hand, forgotten.

"Okay." He swallowed. 'Don't hate me. Please, please don't hate me.' "I found out when I was thirteen, after Sasuke-" a heartbeat of pain, "-left, that the Kyuubi had a plan. He'd been storing up chakra ever since he was sealed in me, and he had this plan that with the stored chakra, he'd use it to break the seal and summon the other eight demons. He can do that, you know, since he's pretty much the demon Hokage; anyway, I wrote up a contract and got him to sign it. If I got his chakra, he got me."

"Why would he agree to that?" He shrugged.

"He thought I wouldn't do what the contract states. Plus there's the whole 'molesting the son of the guy who imprisoned me' thing, you know? Anyway, he agreed."

"Is letting him summon the demons all that bad?"

He snorted at Kakashi's question, meeting Gaara's joyless gaze, sharing their knowledge.

"The words 'killing everything' mean anything to you?" He saw Kakashi wince underneath the mask.

"Okay, yeah."

He shifted, scuffed his foot at the floor, then went on.

"So, see, I can't break the contract, 'cause if I do that, then he gets all his chakra back and can pretty much end the world. As long as I-" he was faintly surprised at the hollow emptiness of his voice, "-let him do that to me, he can't kill us all." Kakashi's face contorted into an expression of terrifying rage, the silver-haired jounin pivoting and punching a hole clear through the wall. Gaara didn't react, not understanding. Kakashi took a few steps forward and knelt at his feet, staring up with a sort of pleading in his eye.

"There's nothing we can do?"

Naruto shrugged, his half-smile bleak.

"Nope. I'm pretty much all that's standing between us and the end of the world.'

Kakashi threw himself to his feet and stalked, stiff-legged from the room, the door clicking shut behind him before Naruto could hear his fists pounding against the wallpaper in rage and helplessness.

Gaara leaned forward, laying a hand on the covers but not touching, their breath mingling, blue meeting green in a stolen moment of peace. There were no words, and somehow he was pathetically grateful that Gaara understood, that he always understood that words were inadequate, words couldn't convey the horrible hopelessness and the weight of the burden on his shoulders.

He closed his eyes and let his head rest on Gaara's shoulder, controlling the tremors that raced up and down his spine, screaming for him to get away, feeling a pale hand touch his back, hesitant, before stroking him, a way of expression for the one for whom words were not enough.

He shuddered, choked on a sob, and tried to banish the wailing child inside him that screamed emptily into nothingness.

* * *

Footnotes:

'But Naruto, he of the ramen and the idealism, couldn't do what he had done, couldn't exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. Even sand beetles and birds were supposed by some to dream.' - This quote is a tribute to the opening of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, one of the great horror novels of the twentieth century.

Hoko – A Japanese tree spirit, usually in the form of a white dog, with power over illusions.

'…hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin…' – A quote from Dulce Et Decorum Est.

'…guttering, choking, drowning.' – A quote from Dulce Et Decorum Est.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I apologize for the long wait. My grandmother was recently diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation, so things have been fairly hectic in my house for the last week. As for this week's chapter, please tell me what you thought of the romance! Romance is my biggest weakness, so any suggestions or criticism would be much appreciated and fawned over. Thanks for reading.

This chapter was beta-ed by the invaluable AisCrim.

* * *

'And as you pray in your darkness  
For wings to set you free  
You are bound to your silent legacy.'

- 'Silent Legacy' by Melissa Etheridge

The stars were just beginning to come out, Kakashi noticed as he lounged against the back porch steps, peering at the picture in front of him over the edge of his book.

Two figures sat on the creaking porch swing, Naruto's head resting on Gaara's crossed legs, the Kazekage's fingers carding through his hair in a comforting motion. The strange scene made his chest ache strangely, a sort of emptiness right below his sternum. He suppressed a snicker. How much more fucked up could you get, when a rape victim sought comfort from a man known to kill without remorse? And that was the only person he took comfort from, not even him, his teacher.

"I hate the night," he heard Naruto mumble. Reminded of what lurked in the darkness, Kakashi returned to his book (normally much too academic for him, but desperate times called for desperate measures), looking the page over again.

_Summoner contracts are a semi-permanent exchange of power between the summoner and the summoned entities. While the summoner provides amounts of spiritual chakra energy (depending on chakra reserves) the summoned entity-_

Blah blah blah… Here it was. _However, demonic contracts are exempt from this, as demons are beings of pure chakra themselves and require none (for the origin myths of demons such as the Shukaku and others, please reference 'The History of Demonology' by Issemaru Taidana) in order to be summoned. Unfortunately, there has been little to no research performed on demonic contracts, as the only person who ever formed a contract with one was later transformed into the Shukaku._ Kakashi marked down the title of the book on his research list, then looked back at the text.

I_n reference to the creation and breaking of demonic contracts, the position of the authors can be simply be stated in one word: Don't._ Kakashi clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to tear the book to shreds. The Hokage would not appreciate his destruction of a supposedly old and rare text; Kakashi knew why it was rare – it was utterly useless! He set the book down and dug his fingers into his hair, closing his eyes for a moment as he chewed on his lip.

Naruto relied on chakra to live, as did all beings, and because his and Kyuubi's chakra had become intermixed, sealing the Kyuubi's chakra would leave him unable to use any chakra at all, leaving him sickened and defenseless. The only way to save him was to break the contract, but there wasn't enough information about demonic contracts out there for him to figure out how to do it without the Kyuubi emerging. He opened his eyes and jerked, staring into green, cold eyes.

"Naruto says the Kyuubi wants him," Gaara said flatly.

'Fuck.' He stood, brushing off his clothing, and adjusted his headband.

"Oh, joy. Are you going to follow him, too?"

Gaara lifted a nonexistent eyebrow, thin lips lifting in a smirk.

"Never mind, stupid question." He looked back as Naruto came up beside them, footsteps silent on the wooden porch, the blue eyes dark with slow sorrow, the muscles of his jaw visibly flexing in tension. His fingers itched to reach out, to comfort. Naruto closed his eyes for a moment, perfectly still. Kakashi's breath froze in his chest at the… beauty of him, the lean, angular face, the long blond hair, the moonlit skin shadowed with scars.

"Let's go," Naruto said, his eyes opening before he began to walk towards the forest. Gaara followed without question, and then Kakashi, cursing what led them here, followed.

The walk was silent, Kakashi's hands shoved in his pockets, watching the moonlight bounce off Gaara's blood-red hair. He snorted. Maybe all vessels were beautiful, despite the fact that Kyuubi – a flash of raging red eyes and snarling crimson mouth – certainly wasn't.

They reached the scorched clearing again, Naruto stripped, stepped into the open space with moonlight on his skin, and-

It all happened again.

Kyuubi's taunts were worse this time, words boiling with hatred and aimed to inspire hopelessness, designed to slash Naruto to pieces.

'You didn't think they'd _care_, did you?'

'You don't think anyone is going to _want_ you, do you?'

And Naruto just knelt there and took it, head bowed, took it as he had taken all the pain of existence. Distantly Kakashi became aware of a low, savage growling. Looking up, he was nearly pinned in place by the terrifying- even for him- sight.

Gaara crouched on the branch, his nails flaying the bark from the tree as he scratched at it. Green eyes reflected the Kyuubi's flames and gave them another dimension of unholiness, white teeth gleaming in the darkness. A low keening tore its way from his throat, the sound desperate and wanting, like a madman rattling against the bars. Sand swirled around him, scything through the air and splintering random bits of wood, stinking of blood, the sand making its own noise, a humming shriek that almost had words in it.

"Gaara!" he said sharply. The former Kazekage blinked, quieted, then glanced at him. "Thank you," he said, and looked away, back at the clearing. Kakashi stared at him. He'd been expecting to be crushed by the sand or something! 'This is a different person,' he reminded himself.

"Hatake-san?"

"Yes?"

"I believe the Kyuubi is tiring." He looked back over just in time to see the red, fiery being blink out like a light, leaving the clearing in darkness. Naruto was frozen for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet and staggered to his clothing. He bent and drew his pants up, then paused, head bowed. Painfully thin shoulders shuddered, there was the gasping sob of someone trying not to cry, and then he controlled himself and continued dressing.

Gaara appeared beside him in a swirl of sand, tilting his face up with deceptive gentleness. Kakashi watched in bemusement as Naruto stared at Gaara- another weird telepathic moment, he guessed- and then collapsed onto him, arms flung around Gaara's torso and face hidden in the crook of the smaller man's neck. Gaara, to his credit, only staggered back a few steps before his arms rose to wind around Naruto's waist, his hand moving up to curl in Naruto's hair. His lips moved, and Kakashi, squinting, could barely make out the words,

"Sleep, friend. I will be here when the sun comes up." The former Kazekage untangled his hand and pinched a nerve, catching Naruto as he slumped onto him. Kakashi joined them, offering a hand. Gaara gazed at him with narrowed eyes, before he carefully passed Naruto into Kakashi's waiting arms, the jounin almost finding the way Naruto's body fit against his, like a piece of a puzzle, strange – only not. Kakashi didn't need the Sharingan to see the way Gaara's hand lingered on Naruto's cheek, tracing the bruises on his knife-sharp cheekbones, or the way his eyes remained fixed on Naruto's face.

'Who would have thought that Gaara would be so loyal?' He shifted Naruto to one arm and performed a quick seal, teleporting them back to their house.

"I'll get the first aid kit," Gaara finally said, the sand trickling into the bathroom while its controller passed into the living room and cleared the coffee table with a swing of his arm. Expensive china smashed against the wall in a shower of fragments, Gaara eerily silent as sand whirled around him, slashing the wallpaper to tatters and tearing the couches into piles of stuffing. Gaara swung around to stare at Kakashi, green eyes cold and terrible with blackened fury.

Kakashi moved slowly, afraid to attract the inhuman rage, to the coffee table, and set Naruto down on his stomach. Without words, sand flowed up to cushion Naruto's head. Kakashi spared a word of thanks as the first aid kit came to hand. Gaara came over and unbuttoned Naruto's shirt, the shirt crackling as it peeled away from crusted blood, folded it, and set it aside.

"Gaara, get some warm water and a cloth," Kakashi said, gazing at the bloody scrapes littering Naruto's back, pale skin stained brown and dry, raised, silver welts criss-crossing over spine and hips in a tapestry of pain. He took the items Gaara handed him and knelt by Naruto's side, dabbing at the crusted blood, wincing with each new scar revealed. He had seen worse things in his life, had found his father writhing on the floor with pink-brown vitals spilling over the reed mats, but somehow these terrible (he wanted to call them 'flaws' but knew that the word wasn't right) wounds of heart and body were worse, made his eyes sting and his heart throb in his chest, aching with every beat, because this was Naruto, who had been pure, had been light and laughter and love in a world that had none, who had been everything that he lacked and wanted.

Naruto stirred under his touch, back arching; Gaara brushed a thumb over his cheekbone and calmed him. Kakashi suppressed jealousy (that should be him by Naruto's side, comforting and calming, because Naruto had been his student!) and turned back to tending to Naruto's wounds, threading a needle and puncturing flesh easily, beginning to stitch flesh together-

He wished hearts were as easy to mend.

"You care for him, don't you?" He broke the silence, knotting thread and moving to the next deep gash. "Yes," Gaara said. That was it, nothing more. He looked up at Gaara, meeting the pale gaze, cracking a smile.

"I'm glad. The more people he has on his side, the better." Gaara turned back to Naruto, his brow furrowed, the 'ai' tattoo- someday Kakashi wanted to know the story behind the tattoo, behind the silent, blood-red scar- wrinkling as Gaara passed a hand over Naruto's face, afraid to touch, as if Naruto would shatter into glass pieces if touched too harshly. Kakashi finished working, splashed antiseptic over the scores, and bandaged him, sensitive fingertips- one didn't get calluses from wearing gloves constantly- reveling in the feel of warm silken skin, so unlike the cold, greasy skin of the dead that he was used to. He wanted to touch, wanted to see what Naruto would look like with a true smile, with a-

He closed his eye and sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead. 'Idiot. Idiot! He can't deal with this, with you, and anyway you're a decade older then he is, not to mention he's your student and a rape victim to boot. Rape that you didn't prevent. Just think about getting him better, and all this will go away.' But he couldn't bring himself to move away, to stop watching the way Naruto's golden hair stirred in his breath or the delicate line of his spine. "I'm going to take him to his room," he said, sliding his arms under Naruto's belly and lifting him sideways, surprised all over again at the light, barely-there weight of his student. 'Did he even _eat_ today?'

A lance of pain stabbed through his chest as Naruto whimpered and twisted, trying- unconsciously, so Kakashi couldn't blame him, no matter how much he wished- to escape touch, to escape a memory of pain. 'You can't comfort him,' he told himself, settling Naruto back on the coffee table for Gaara- _always_ Gaara, Gaara the strong, Gaara the loyal, Gaara, the one that Naruto trusted beyond all others- to take. His eyes burned.

"You can deal with him. He _likes_ you." His voice was abrupt to his own ears, bitter as wormwood. "I'm going home to get a change of clothes." A few seals and he was gone, appearing in his dingy apartment. Digging a hand into his hair, he threw himself onto the couch, which squawked in protest.

Damn it! Damn it all to hell! He hated feeling so helpless, so blind, so weak, unable to save his student from this pain that he should have known about. He couldn't do anything to stop that fox from taking and abusing him every night, just as he had done for so long. Physical scars weren't the only scars such experiences left. Naruto would never be able to be touched by someone older or larger then he was without remembering that- that perversion! And he couldn't help with that either – maybe only Gaara could. He threw a kunai at the wall, and then another out of frustration and helplessness. Even Icha Icha Paradise couldn't calm him – reading about men and women boinking each other silly and spouting flowery declarations of love held no appeal, because all it made him remember was the fact that Naruto had had that stolen from him before he was even old enough to understand what he had lost.

Carefully, quietly, he curled into a ball, sighing, once.

And then all was silent.

* * *

Naruto lay on his side, dull, throbbing ache radiating from his spine, watching the moon make its slow circle across the sky. Silver this night, silver as Kakashi's hair. He closed his eyes, struggling to keep the wail of apology and longing from erupting and bringing Gaara into his room.

He loved Kakashi, always had- it had started out as a stupid crush, like most, because Kakashi had always been so _cool_, so calm and in control all the time. But Kakashi had never really noticed him, he was always too busy with _Sasuke_. Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke-

Everyone loved Sasuke, loved the stupid bastard even though he'd betrayed his village and his friends and himself. Even Kakashi had loved Sasuke, taught him the Chidori, the Sharingan, trained him and treated him as… he guessed a son, but he didn't know how sons were supposed to be treated.

He rolled over, hissing as his body protested, to gaze at the door, wishing for it to open, for Kakashi to come slinking in with his goofy grin, pink book in one hand. For Kakashi to-

To care. Hot tears pricked at his eyes; he swiped them away with a clenched hand, stifling the shame inside him. No one would ever want him now, especially not after- he shook, tried to stop, couldn't, because he had responded to the fox, had actually gotten _aroused_ from the pain and the burning and-

"Oh, god." His whisper was loud in the stillness. He drew his knees up to his chin, ignoring the pain from his thighs, and rocked on the mattress, taking a shuddering breath, tears, hot, unwanted, trickling from his closed eyes.

"I'm so fucking sick."

* * *

Neji Hyuuga had been called a prodigy many, many times.

Never, however, had he felt less like one. He watched the kunai twirl lazily around his finger, the wildly spinning blade mirroring his thoughts.

Naruto was being sexually abused. This, he knew, due to the Byakugan and lip-reading. And seeing the way the blond had looked, pale as paper and thin as bird's bones-

It had to stop. But what could he do, against something as powerful, as all-consuming as the Kyuubi, the immortal, nine-tailed fox of legend? The fox that could uproot mountains with one swing of its tails? He had to break the contract, had to keep Naruto from going to the Kyuubi with fire in his gaze and loyalty in his heart. He couldn't do this alone, not to mention he'd need to make sure that Gaara and Kakashi were occupied; that was going to be difficult. Kakashi was easy to deal with: just tell him about a new edition of Icha Icha Paradise and he was toast.

Gaara, on the other hand… He was frightened of the younger man, anyone with a brain in their head would be after seeing him decimate… no, torture Lee in the Chuunin exams. Not to mention Gaara seemed slavishly devoted to Naruto. He wasn't sure what Gaara would care enough about… He flicked the kunai into the air, caught it and balanced it on a fingertip as it came down, and sighed.

He was going to need help from everyone, probably. Naruto was too loyal to let one person keep him from doing his 'duty.'

The word tasted bitter in his mouth.

* * *

Gaara sat alone at the rickety kitchen table, a glass of milk cooling his cramped hands, the soft white light of the moon refracting through the glass and swinging on the table with each tilt of his hands, a pointer leading to nowhere.

His hands clenched around the glass, the cup creaking in protest, tendons cording out under pale skin. The air scalded his lungs with each breath. He hadn't known what rape was… Now he knew; knew, and wished he didn't.

It was violence.

It was degradation.

It was pain and control and everything, everything that he had suffered in Suna, but somehow worse, because he had fought back, had killed his tormentors, and Naruto couldn't.

The glass shattered, shards grinding against the sand as milk spilled out, glistening in the moonlight, limned in silver and blood. He gazed blankly at the shining liquid, reaching up and tracing the tattoo on his forehead, intimately familiar as his own heartbeat.

'Ai.'

Love. A feeling of affection towards a person, a recognition of attractive qualities. Naruto had many attractive qualities, loyalty as boundless as sand, a quicksilver smile, power beyond power, strength tempered with gentleness, a warm hand that he missed feeling against his face.

He blinked, sketched a word in the milk and watched it disappear. Love. So small a word, but it encompassed so many feelings- _had_ to, to make anyone satisfied with being with one person for the rest of their life. Did he… love Naruto Uzumaki, the loud blond man, the fragile and brittle man?

He rested his elbows on the table and rubbed at the tattoo. It itched, suddenly. This was irritating, very much so, but somehow it seemed fitting to him, that he must suffer with Naruto, because they were both vessels, children of sin, and they bore the weight and pain of sorrow and sin for others.

The chair clattered as he stood, turning and climbing the stairs two at a time. He had to confess this revelation to Naruto, because Naruto understood everything, could tell him if this sad, painful twisting in his chest was love, could tell him what love was. He opened the door, then stopped.

Naruto was sleeping, fitful, twisting under the sheets, stitched gashes breaking open and seeping. Gaara was across the room in a moment, seizing him by the shoulders and shaking him awake.

Naruto twitched in his grip, blue eyes fluttering open to pin him in place, eyes glazed with confusion, before he blinked, swallowed, and collapsed onto Gaara with a crackling, hoarse sob, all knees and elbows and dry breaths in his ear, pain incarnate.

Gaara sat down on the bed with difficulty, then lay down while Naruto sprawled across him, arms tight around his chest, blond hair tucked under his chest.

They lay there in the light of the moon for a while, the walls and Naruto's skin glowing and silvered in the silver luminescence. Gaara sifted through Naruto's hair once more, the familiar motions calming and soothing him, while Naruto mumbled incoherent apologies and rants and raves, words slurring with each breath, and then he suddenly fell limp, breath stirring against Gaara's face.

Gaara gazed down at the pale, thin face, traced the lines of the whiskers with a finger and whispered, so softly that he wasn't sure he had spoken,

"I love you."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** For Spoon no Miko, I got the concept of the Hoko from the Wikipedia entry on the Bijiu. It seemed easier to use a demon that already had five tails then to risk making a mistake with the mythology.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

This chapter was betaed by the invaluable AisCrim.

* * *

'_Cause I'm a train wreck  
Waiting to happen  
Waiting for someone to come pick me up off the tracks  
A wild fire born of frustration.'_

- 'Train Wreck' by Sarah McLachlan

Kakashi shouldered open the door, blinking in the light of the rising sun, and entered the house, juggling a basket of pancakes (burnt, of course; he had no illusions about his culinary skills) and his book in his hands. Sand flowed up from around his feet, wrapping around the handle of the basket. He let go, watching in bemusement and not a little fear as the sand carried the basket into the kitchen.

"Thanks," he said to the empty air, following the basket into the kitchen and putting the book away. Gaara waved a hand in response, looking frighteningly intent as he glared at the spoonful of soggy Cheerios before his nose.

"I'm guessing you're not a fan of cereal?" Gaara snorted, then said,

"Is it supposed to be so… limp?" Kakashi snickered at Gaara's childish indignation, then shut up as the green eyes glanced at him. He took another step inside, blinked, and came to a stop. Naruto was perched on a chair, back firmly wedged into a corner. '_So he can watch the door_,' he realized, shoulders slumping at the reminder that life would never be normal again. Naruto noticed him and grinned, a poor shadow of his old self.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei! What's in the basket?" Kakashi shrugged. "It's Orochimaru's favorite teddy bear, of course. You can't be so lazy that you won't find out yourself." Naruto growled low in his throat but got up, limping over to the basket and opening it.

"Pancakes! Yes!" Gaara got up as soon as Naruto yelled, coming to stand beside him and peering down at what made Naruto so happy. Kakashi fought down the urge to howl with laughter at the way Naruto and Gaara looked, both staring bemusedly into the basket, identical expressions of confusion plastered across their faces. He cleared his throat.

"I, uh, made pancakes for you guys." Naruto looked up from his awed contemplation of the pancakes, expression changing, lips thinning, eyes darkening to a cold, weary blue the color of the sea in a storm. "Kakashi-sensei, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure." He held open the door as Naruto limped past him into the living room, settling onto the couch that spilled stuffing everywhere without a wince. Naruto looked down at his hands for a few silent moments, than squared his shoulders.

"I- I really, um, appreciate everything you've done, like making pancakes and sticking around when you don't have to and helping me and all, but-" he faltered, swallowing. Kakashi waited a minute, then prompted,

"Yeah?"

Naruto flinched, but plunged on,

"Anyway. I guess what I'm trying to say is," his voice cracked, and Kakashi watched him wring his hands until they were red as blood, "can you please, please treat me the way you did before?" Thin shoulders quivered as Naruto choked out the last word, lips trembling,

"_Please?_"

Kakashi crossed the room immediately at Naruto's rasped plea, the solitary word brimming with sorrow and cracked pain and the crushed hope of a boy denied everything since birth. He knelt before his student and took his hands, carefully separating them, wanting, more then he had wanted anything before, to say 'yes.'

The cold hands trembled in his grip as Kakashi looked down, closing his eyes at this reminder that Naruto was afraid of him, would always be afraid. He squeezed them gently, wanting to hold them for a while and give some of his warmth to this fragile man.

"I'm sorry," he said with terrible honesty, "But I can't." There was a pause. The hands stilled. Naruto took a deep, shuddering breath, then wrenched his hands away and shot up from the couch, his voice hoarse and shattering as he howled,

"Then _lie to me_, damnit! Just-" his hands rose to clench helplessly in his hair, then sank down, curling around his torso like a wounded child, chakra sparking and crawling over the walls, leaving wallpaper peeling from the beams and pictures falling from the melted nails, never mind that he technically shouldn't have had any, because his rage was that great-

For the first time in his life, Kakashi was afraid of his own student. He rose from his crouch and moved cautiously to stand behind him, afraid to touch, afraid that the bloody chakra would burn his fingers to the bone.

"I just wanted to be normal," Naruto said, pacing back and forth, fevered eyes staring at something only he could see, fingers clenching spasmodically. "That was all I ever wanted, but what I _want, _what I _need,_ doesn't matter, 'cause it's never mattered! Why couldn't Sasuke have gotten the Kyuubi, it would've given him the power he always wanted so bad!" He spun and stared into Kakashi's eyes, breathed a single, tormented 'why?' and then fell into him in a heap of surprisingly light young man, thin arms winding around his waist like a lifeline. But he never cried.

Just like him to refuse tears. Kakashi held him up, took a few faltering steps to the crumbling couch, and collapsed onto it, shifting Naruto so his head wasn't digging into Kakashi's shoulder. He looked up and caught Gaara's eye, the pale gaze fixed on Naruto, on the contact between them – something he had never had, brow wrinkled.

Kakashi lowered his eyes. '_But somewhere_,' he thought, looking at the way Naruto's head rested on his thigh, shoulders twitching and jumping as if electricity was running through them, '_like a homeless child, his heart is crying in the cold._' For a moment he wondered if that was the fate of all vessels, to be so…

To be the walking wounded. To have dragged themselves through life mired in sorrow and pain and neglect, to have been beaten down so many times that they no longer knew what it was to stand up.

He gestured for Gaara to take a seat in the armchair next to him before turning his attention back to Naruto's trembling form. "Naruto?" The blond stilled for a moment, swallowed audibly, and then shook even harder, as if he had a fever. "God, I hate that fox," Kakashi whispered. Naruto's tremors abated at those words and sat up, pushing his hair back as he met Kakashi's gaze with too-serious eyes.

"Don't…" he sighed more than said, "Don't say that."

"Why shouldn't I? Naruto, he's been _raping_ you for seven years, for God's sake!"

Naruto dropped his head, digging fingers into his hair, then sat up, exchanging a significant glance with Gaara, and said,

"Kakashi-sensei, there's no point in hating Kyuubi. He doesn't _get_ what 'right' or 'wrong' are. They're completely meaningless concepts to him." He sketched an arbitrary shape in the air, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Explaining what's right or wrong to him is like… uh… it's like trying to explain what ramen is to an earthworm. They've never experienced it, so they don't know what it is. He doesn't do things for any real reason. He just does them because they make him feel good. That's why he attacked Konoha, you know."

Kakashi stared at him, his stomach writhing inside him like an angry snake. 'That's… it? That was all? He killed thousands because it made him feel _good?_' Outrage boiled up inside him, escaping his control as his teeth ground together slowly.

"How… how can you just sit there like that?" he forced out. Naruto stared at him with eyes like an old man's, silent. Kakashi turned to Gaara for support, but only saw Naruto's sad, wise eyes reflected in pale green.

"Hatake-san," Gaara said in his soft, sad voice, "Demons don't understand. The Shukaku protected me because it made Mother feel good to do so and pain to its host felt bad. The Kyuubi torments Naruto because it makes him feel good. They are like exceptionally dangerous, frightening children. Would you hate…" he paused on that word, but plunged on regardless, "a child for eating too much food and throwing up on you?"

Kakashi closed his eyes, hands curling into fists. '_Why are they always so fucking accepting of all this? Why don't they ever fight back?_'

"I'm going to have some pancakes!" Naruto broke the uncomfortable silence, his mask back in place instantly, and bounced off the couch, wincing as his open wounds caught on the fabric of his shirt. "Hey, Gaara, what kind of syrup do you put on your pancakes?" Gaara followed him.

"I've never had pancakes."

"AGH! No ramen, no pancakes, next you're going to tell me you've never played checkers." There was silence, and then Naruto said in a resigned tone,

"Okay, then. We'll just have to play checkers today."

Kakashi blinked, Gaara's words sinking in. 'Did he just refer to the sand as his mother?' He let his head drop into his armored hands, exhaling.

'I don't know what to do, Arashi-sensei. Your son is suffering so badly with Gaara right there with him, and I can't do anything to save them.'

He had never felt so helpless.

* * *

'Okay,' Neji thought, looking at the shinobi scattered randomly around his living room. Sasuke was fiddling with his vest, looking bored; Shikamaru and Chouji were sprawled on the floor, staring up at the ceiling; Ino and Sakura were discussing the latest medical jutsus in low tones; Kiba, Shino, and Hinata were all occupied with keeping Akamaru from breaking the window to get inside, and Lee and Tenten were both emptying his refrigerator.

"Okay, Neji, so you've got us all here," Sasuke drawled, turning his snake mask over in his hands, "So what do you want?"

"Hey, where is Naruto? This meeting is missing his bright flames of youth!" Lee said, looking around. Neji pinched his nose, counted to ten, and turned around. "Naruto won't be here. This meeting is about him."

Lee threw himself onto the couch and set his feet up on Neji's nice new coffee table, propping his chin on his fists.

"Okay," Shikamaru said, looking up, "You dragged me away from getting a new shougi set, so spill." Neji took a breath, hoped that they would accept the new fact, and said simply,

"Naruto has the Kyuubi sealed inside him."

There was silence. Sakura and Sasuke didn't flinch, so Neji assumed that they already knew. Chouji stopped chewing, a few crumbs falling onto his jacket. Shikamaru shrugged and lay back down, but Ino's eyes narrowed. 'Oh no.'

"Are you telling me," she breathed, "that that hyperactive trickster has the greatest demon of the ages inside him? That he killed my grandfather and uncle?" Her fingers curled into fists, blue eyes fairly glowing with rage. "No, Ino," Neji answered, letting his head fall into his hand in exasperation, "He just has the Kyuubi sealed _inside_ him, he isn't actually the Kyuubi itself."

"So that's why…" Hinata finally said, gazing at her folded hands. Kiba placed a hand on her shoulder. "What, Hinata?"

"Why everyone hates him so much, why they glare at him and trip him whenever he walks by." Kiba looked down, closing his eyes in guilt.

"Anyway, Naruto needs our help," Neji interjected. "No." Ino stood as she spoke, her face flushed as she gritted out, "I am not going to help that _demon_ in any way, shape or form. He should have been killed at birth!" Sakura shot up, hand pulling back, but Sasuke caught her and pushed her back down. "Do what you want," Ino said, "But I'm leaving." The door clicked behind her.

"Okay," Neji said, "Any other objections?"

"What do you mean by Naruto needing our help?" Shino spoke up. Neji swallowed and glanced down at his carpet. It needed to be cleaned, there were way too many coffee stains and watermarks-

"Neji, our youthful friend needs our help! Tell us," Lee implored, great eyes shining with manly tears. Neji twisted the ring on his finger- no going back now, for any of them- looked up at their expectant faces, and said in a defeated voice,

"Two days ago, Kakashi appeared in the Hokage Tower while Sasuke and I were on guard duty. He requested that the Hokage come with him to tend to Naruto. Sasuke and I followed, although Naruto made us leave the house itself. I was able to use the Byakugan to see what was going on inside the house while the Hokage was healing him. Naruto was burned badly and appeared scarred and in much pain. I found out what was causing it as well." He trailed off, feeling hot tears burn against his eyelids that Naruto, beautiful, bright Naruto, the leader of a legendary generation, should suffer like that, that he must tell the friends who would follow Naruto into hell of it. _'Don't make me say this-' _his thoughts splintered like shattered glass,_ 'Don't make me make this real.' _

"Well?" Sasuke broke his reverie with his sharp voice. Neji opened his eyes, looked up at his friends' worried faces, and said in a voice that rang hollow,

"For seven years, Naruto has been repeatedly raped by the Kyuubi. I stole some of the files on him from the archives." There was a heartbeat of pained silence fluttering in the gloom before a torrent of noise broke loose.

Hinata made a heartbreakingly soft sound and buried her face in her hands, delicate shoulders straining to contain the gasping sobs that racked her.

Kiba made a low growling noise, the rumble resounding louder and louder with each passing second, brown eyes bright with fury, claws cutting into his own palms and dripping blood onto the carpet.

A black cloud of bugs appeared from nowhere, swarming around Shino's arms, humming a piercing note that went on and on and on like it would continue until the ending of the world, the bugs whirling in response to their host's wrath.

The shadows in the corner of the room writhed like maddened beasts, reaching out to coil around Shikamaru's deadly still body, the jounin's face pale as marble and kunai whirling around his fingers, produced from nowhere.

Chouji's mouth gaped wide, a chip dangling in midair, forgotten on its way to his mouth. He closed his mouth with a loud clack, fingers crushing the chip.

Tenten murmured "I think I'm going to be sick," and bolted for the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind her with a loud bang.

Lee's brows drew together into a frown, but he said nothing, only a few tears escaping his eyes and trickling down his face, his eyes blank and staring into nothingness, his fists quivering.

Finally, afraid of what he would see, Neji turned to the two who knew Naruto best.

Sakura slumped against the couch and began to weep, rocking back and forth, mumbling incoherent apologies; her hands dug into the couch as she gasped for air, her cup of coffee falling from her hands and shattering on the floor. Her face was as pale as snow, eyes wide and hopeless, her lip shredding between her teeth as she rocked faster and faster, her voice rising higher and higher until it cracked into needle-sharp splinters.

Sasuke's eyes gleamed blood-red, whirling with the force of a hurricane, his hand flexing on the hilt of his sword for a moment, lips peeling back into a hysterical smile of grief. The ANBU mask in his other hand cracked under the pressure of his anger, but he said nothing, bloody eyes mad with fury. And somehow, his silence was the most frightening of all.

Neji let his head fall into his hands once more, ignoring Hinata's soft sobbing, Sakura's breaking voice, Kiba's growls. 'I'm so sorry, Naruto,' he thought as Kiba and Shino pulled Sakura to her feet and held her still, forcing her to calm down. 'So sorry that you must suffer.'

He raised his head, staring at the pale but determined faces of his comrades. 'But this I can promise you, Naruto,' he swore, biting his lip until it bled, 'You will not suffer for much longer. We will stop the Kyuubi and save you from the darkness, just as you have saved all of us.'

* * *

'But somewhere, like a homeless child, his heart is crying in the cold.' – This is an allusion to the poem 'A Winter Night' by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sarah Teasdale. 


	8. Chapter 8

It was strange, Kakashi reflected from his seat in the shade of a spreading oak tree, that wherever unattached males gathered, no matter who they were, the gathering place inevitably became a shithole.

And with Gaara and Naruto in the same place, their small house had become a testament to bachelordom after a mere day of them all living in it. Pots and pans piled high in the kitchen, sand trickling from the doorway of Gaara's room, old clothing flung haphazardly about- all these things made the house a total wreck, unfit for human habitation.

But Kakashi liked it anyway. He looked up from his book at the loud bang, watching a horde of Narutos fling kunai as one. Sand whirled into existence, covering Gaara's slight form. The kunai stuck, quivering, and then 'poof!' They were gone, and more clones were in their place, pounding away at the sand.

The sand withdrew with the clones, and chakra, fierce and terrible, poured from the earth beneath Gaara's feet, melting the earth as Naruto himself sprang from the ground, the nearly infinite amount of chakra that the Kyuubi provided him put to good use as he twisted in the air, blue flames of chakra following his movements. Seals, one after the other flickered in his hands- horse, snake, sheep, dog, rooster, boar, and then, in a terrifying crescendo of sound, dragon.

A dragon, larger then Gamabunta himself, appeared out of nothing, chakra-blue scales gleaming in the sunlight. Kakashi didn't even try to copy the technique- only Naruto, with his never-ending chakra, could give the astral beast the chakra it demanded. Chakra that had been bought for a high price, so dear.

As the dragon roared and dove for the waves of sand that roiled beneath, Kakashi removed himself to a prudent distance. He watched the battle, jealousy of their abilities that he could never hope to match rising, hot and bitter, in his throat, before he crushed it. Sure, he had lived a hard life, but whatever suffering he had experienced was nothing before theirs.

There was an earsplitting roar of noise, sand and spirit locked together, quivering for a moment, the piercing note going on and on and on and on-

It ceased, sand disappearing as Gaara stumbled, staggered, and fell, catching himself on one hand. Naruto landed no more gracefully, falling flat onto his face. Kakashi rolled his eyes. For an ANBU, Naruto didn't have much grace or stealth. No matter. He tucked his book away and strolled over to help them up. He stopped by Gaara, extending a hand.

Gaara sat up then, and just…

_Looked_ at him. It was heartbreaking, the complete and total surprise in his eyes, surprise that anyone, anyone at all, would help, would care. It was the same look in Naruto's eyes when Kakashi had bandaged his hand after the bloody oath in their mission for Tazuna, only magnified a thousand times over, for Gaara had never had an Iruka.

"Come on," Kakashi said, feeling like he was coaxing a toddler to walk. But wasn't that just what Gaara was, a novice, a child to all forms of intimacy or love? Gaara lifted a hand hesitantly and reached up, as if anticipating that Kakashi would snatch his hand away. But he didn't, merely remained still, waiting. A thin, cold hand curled around his, and Kakashi pulled him to his feet, surprised all over again at how short he was, barely 5'6.

'Malnutrition,' a voice inside him whispered. Gaara stared up at him, his thin lips parted.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," Kakashi said. Gaara stared up at him, uncomprehending. His tongue slipped out, moistened dry lips, and the Sand shinobi said, as if testing the words,

"Thank you."

"Any time." He let Gaara's hand go, stuffed down the sudden feeling of emptiness that came up with the lack of contact, and turned to look at Naruto. His sad, painful face lacked whatever peace he had gained during the fight, the only place anymore that he could find such a thing. Naruto, noticing his gaze, blinked and forced his mask into place.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei! Can we spar later?" The blond bounded up beside him, moving easily, the stitches not bothering him anymore. "Sure, Naruto. I'd be happy to."

"Cool!" Suddenly there were thin, warm arms around his waist, blue eyes gazing up at him from his chest. Kakashi grinned, patting the young man on the head, feeling gold silk trickle through his fingers. "Good dog."

"Hey! I'm not a dog!" Naruto poked him in the chest, face crumpling into a frown. Kakashi was unable to resist the urge to snake his arm around to grasp Naruto by the collar- Naruto could deal with that contact, just not with skin-to-skin- and lift him up, eye curving into a smile.

"Really? You're like a yappy little poodle, if you ask me."

"I'm not a _poodle_! I'm a mastiff! Big and fierce and-"

"No, you're definitely a poodle." He set him down gently, dodged the feigned punch, and darted towards the house with Naruto chasing after him, squawking his indignation.

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"Here." Sasuke pushed the cup of tea into Sakura's hands, which trembled as she set the cup down on the saucer, making the porcelain clatter against the wooden table. She pushed her hair away from her eyes, looking up and smiling weakly.

"Thanks, Sas-" her voice cracked, the word trailing off into a hoarse, gasping sob. Sasuke swallowed, hesitating as he crouched by her, then reached out and laid a careful hand on her shoulder.

The dam broke.

She flung herself off the couch and into him, sending him sprawling onto the floor, her thin arms wrapped around his waist and hot tears soaking his chest, only the sound of incomparable sadness and the quiet ticking of the grandfather clock, one-two-three, the beats of a world that he could never return to trailing off into the darkness of infinity.

He brought a hand up and laid it on her back, staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks that spiraled out.

Nine cracks.

Nine tails.

His gut slammed downward like a flightless bird, and he opened his mouth halfway, a quiet, half-spoken cry of rage and sorrow stuck, clogged, in his throat, while his hand rested on Sakura's quivering back as she cried into his neck, hot breath fanning across his skin.

He shivered. They lay there for a while in the warmth of the sunlight, a few, unwanted, disgusting tears trailing from his eyes down to disappear into his hair, his throat clogged and sandpapery, arms wrapped around Sakura, who wailed into his ear, shuddering bodily like a piece of paper in the wind, as if he alone could hold her together, fix the shattered pieces of a girl who no longer knew what to believe.

"It's going to be okay," he lied.

Sakura shuddered, her grip tightening with bone-crushing strength, and breathed,

"No, it won't. _Nothing_ will be okay anymore."

Sasuke closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and carefully brought a hand up to stroke through her pink hair, frightened and somehow curious about this intimacy that he had never allowed himself to have.

"Naruto is strong. He'll pull through this. He gets through everything. He won't let himself get pounded down: that's not his way, never has been. It never will be."

She relaxed onto him, tears spent, and took a breath.

"Sasuke, why didn't we _know_? We're his teammates! We're his _family_, his siblings and friends and confidantes! Why didn't he _tell_ us!" Her voice was ragged, thick with sorrow and betrayal.

"I don't know, Sakura," he said. His chest hurt. It felt like someone had taken his heart in an iron vice and was slowly squeezing it with every condemning word Sakura spoke, a dull, pervasive pain that spread through his torso like poison. He spoke again, the only answer he had, the only thing he could say to such a warped world, one that had broken apart and reformed together- wrong, all wrong- like a broken bone.

"I don't know. I don't know."

Sakura quaked against him, and her gasps for air were terrifying in their harshness. "I should have known! I should have seen that he was always escaping at night and not sleeping and getting bags around his eyes and-"

"'Should have' isn't going to get us anywhere."

"It's true!" He sighed. "Maybe. But-" the thought came like a punch to the gut, "if either of us should bear the greater blame, it's me."

She snorted.

"Oh, screw your martyr complex, Sasuke."

He bit his tongue in an attempt to keep the acidic words from spilling out.

He didn't succeed.

"Okay, maybe you're right. Maybe you _should_ have known– " shoving her off him, staggering to his feet, raking hands through hair, "But you didn't, and if you had then we wouldn't be in this situation now, would we?" He turned and glared, watching in vindictive triumph as she flinched like he had slapped her.

"That's not fair." Her voice was flat. He sneered, quashing the guilt that bubbled up inside him for treating her this way- she didn't deserve it, none of them did. Especially not Naruto. Fire flickered in her green gaze as she smiled, a harsh baring of teeth.

"You know," her words were sickly-sweet, tainted, serpent's poison hidden behind smiling lips, "you were always competing with him. You- you wanted to be a big man, oh-so-strong and powerful. Making up for inadequacies, perhaps?" she said sweetly. He clenched his fists. She pressed her attack, seeming, for a moment, to be like no one so much as Kabuto.

"Were you trying to make up for failing to kill Itachi? Or _maybe_," she feigned surprise, tapping a finger on her chin in a grotesque parody, "you wanted to make up for _failing_ your family?" He growled.

Her expression became blank, her voice terribly flat and judging. "You were always competing with him. You always wanted to know that you were better. Well, you weren't. Naruto is kind, Naruto is loyal, Naruto would _kill_ himself to keep his friends safe, and you? You're nothing but a traitorous bastard with a murderer's blood in your veins!" She smiled, a few tears leaking from her eyes, and somehow, it was the saddest thing he had ever seen. The next words fell with the knell of a hammer striking stone.

"It was never a contest. He was _always_ the better man."

The door slammed shut behind her. He stood frozen for a moment, then collapsed in on himself, burying his head in his hands. One deep, shuddering breath, and then, for the first time in over five years, Sasuke Uchiha began to weep.

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Gaara looked around the corner into the darkened living room, manipulating the Third Eye to perch atop a bookcase and look at the strange picture below.

The television flickered, casting blue-white light over the two figures on the couch. Hatake lounged on one side, taking up almost the entire space, with Naruto crowded against the end, huddled inside ridiculously huge leaf-print pajamas. One of Hatake's ungloved hands, the fingers long and slender, almost delicate-looking, carded through Naruto's hair in a comforting gesture.

Gaara closed the Third Eye, clenching his fist. He was… jealous, unreasonably so. Why should he be jealous? This deserved to be meditated upon. Climbing up onto the bed that took up most of the room he had been given, he pressed his hands together and stared at the wood grain in the boards.

Jealousy. Noun. Etymologically related to 'envy.'

Envy. Noun. A desire for the possessions and qualities of another. He frowned. The definition was singularly unhelpful. He didn't want any of Naruto's possessions, nor any of his qualities.

Unless… were relationships counted as a quality, or physical contact as a possession? He chewed on his lower lip in thought. That was what he wanted, what Naruto and Hatake had, a relationship that had safety and closeness, warmth and friendship. He had never had that until he met Naruto, and he had certainly never had anyone… run their hand through his hair like that.

He was… jealous.

"Hey, Gaara?" He looked up at the heavy, sleep-rough voice. Naruto stood in his doorway in bare feet, rubbing at his eyes. Gaara flushed, looking down. When would he be able to tell Naruto his conclusion about his feelings for him? Certainly not with Hatake right in the house. That was one too many people.

"Yes, Naruto?"

"Want to come watch a movie with me and Kakashi-sensei?" He blinked. "Me?"

"No, the invisible monkey next to you. Of course, you!"

He bit his lip. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, come on! We've just gotten to where the monster attacks the dumb bimbo with a coat hanger." Gaara got up slowly, and followed Naruto down the stairs, twisting the cloth of his shirt all the way. Hatake looked up as they came into the living room, shifting on the couch to make room for him.

Gaara approached, perching on the edge of the couch. Hatake snorted- a not unpleasant sound- and pulled him back to fit snugly between his side and the arm of the couch, draping a long limb around his shoulders. Gaara flinched, breath catching, eyes wide.

"Did I scare you? Sorry."

Gaara swallowed and forced the words out.

"Thank you." Gingerly, he leaned back into Hatake's arm, which curled around him. He looked over at Naruto, who flashed him a thumbs-up and a cheesy grin. Fighting down the urge to flee, he forced himself to relax and watch the television.

Naruto whooped as, using a coat hanger, the odd tree-man hybrid decapitated the bleached blonde woman in a spray of blood that coated the entire room. Gaara frowned, brow wrinkling.

"The amount of blood in the human body is nowhere near that much. No human contains twelve gallons of it."

"It's a bad horror movie, Gaara," Hatake said, ruffling his hair. "Just shut up and enjoy the awfulness." Gaara felt warmth in his chest, expanding with every sweep of Hatake's fingers through his hair. It felt nice, safe, comforting. Yashamaru had never done that: he had always been distant and cool, afraid to touch.

Eyes drooping, he leaned into the touch, making a soft noise of enjoyment. The hand paused, then continued its hypnotic motion, the pressure and novel sensation enjoyable. If Hatake continued this, he was going to fall asleep…

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Kakashi watched the words 'The End' appear on the screen in a very poor attempt to look like they were made of blood, then looked down at the two younger men slumped against him. Naruto's hair stirred with each breath, his mouth half-open and a trail of drool dribbling from one corner.

Gaara, on the other hand, slept restlessly, his brow furrowed into small lines that his hands itched to smooth away, mouth pursed as if contemplating some irritating problem that he found personally insulting.

For a moment he debated waking them up. But no… Naruto would be needed by the Kyuubi soon, anyway so any sleep he got now would be good. Red-hot anger ricocheted through him like a badly-thrown kunai at this undeniable fact, that this beautiful man who inspired hope and faith in others should suffer – He shook off the rage and focused on Naruto once more. Decision made, he lifted Naruto's warm, limp weight and carried him up the stairs, hoping that Naruto wouldn't get any drool on his sweats. Naruto mumbled something that sounded heartbreakingly like 'Stop' and settled, hands curling in his ratty T-shirt. Kakashi nudged open the door to Naruto's empty room and shifted his burden, pulling back the covers and laying Naruto down. Giving into temptation for a moment, he brushed a hand over Naruto's surprisingly soft hair.

He had a hair fetish, it seemed.

Turning away, he went back down to get Gaara. Gaara was a whole other experience. He was light, so light he seemed insubstantial, and terribly thin. Kakashi could feel every ridge of his ribs poking against his chest. As he lifted him up, Gaara curled in against him, hands clenching tightly in his shirt.

Kakashi stopped, feeling unexpected tears sting his eyes. Both of them were so _needy, _so wanting and broken and unable to express just what it was they needed so badly. He wondered if all vessels were like this, so desperate for any sort of affection or comfort, so totally willing to die for anyone who gave them a scrap of cursory warmth. Steeling himself, he went up the stairs and put Gaara into his bed. As he stepped away, Gaara's hand lashed out and caught him by the wrist, pulling him back to the bed.

Kakashi stared, stupefied. He tugged, trying to liberate himself, but Gaara merely held on tighter. Rolling his eyes heavenward, he settled down by the sleeping redhead and resigned himself to another sleepless night.


	9. Chapter 9

Kakashi shifted, stretching his legs once more. His arm was beginning to complain vehemently about the awkward position it was being held in, and Kakashi wanted to complain about not being able to sleep, like Gaara was doing so peacefully.

Well… not really peacefully. Gaara slept like a dead man, flat on his back, black eyelids- a mark of how much heartbreaking damage had been done, one that would never leave- quivering slightly, his chest hardly rising and falling at all. Kakashi amused himself by studying Gaara's thin form, confused by the Sand-nin's skin. It was inhuman: hairless, pale as alabaster, and completely lacking in any sort of pores whatsoever. It was as if Gaara had been carved out of a solid chunk of marble. 'I suppose the sand makes him that way.' He moved to look at Gaara's face, tracing the blood-red tattoo with his eyes, then the sharp, elfin chin and nose.

Gaara twitched, his hand clenching around Kakashi's, a low whimper, like that of a wounded animal, emerging from him, lips curling into a frown. A rasped word, so soft Kakashi could hardly hear it,

"Yashamaru…"

Kakashi closed his eye, sighing. He really wasn't cut out for this. He jerked as Gaara suddenly thrashed, the sand in the corner whirling into a cyclone, humming with agitation. That did it. He got up from his position on the floor and grabbed Gaara by the shoulder, shaking him, teeth gritted with the hope that the sand wouldn't react and slash him into tiny bloody pieces. Gaara's mouth opened, and he _wailed_, the sound so broken and appallingly resigned, something Kakashi would never in a million years have expected from someone he had feared so much. Kakashi winced, took a breath, and began to shake him harder, Gaara's head lolling alarmingly with each shake.

"Gaara, wake up!" Gaara's eyes flickered open, blurry green pinning him in place. Kakashi stared dumbly into the hypnotizing gaze, his grip loosening.

His mouth opened, and he heard himself say, as if from a great distance, "Who's Yashamaru?" Gaara's eyes widened. _ 'Oh great job, Hatake. You've really done it now. Getting killed by comforting someone, not an illustrious way to go.'_

Gaara slid out of his grip and moved up against the headboard, drawing thin, knobby knees up to his chest, the posture of a frightened and wounded animal. He stared at the far wall, green gaze unfocused and terrible in its sadness. His throat worked and finally a few halting words escaped.

"How… do you know that name?"

"You said it before I woke you up."

Gaara blinked, turning his head to look at him.

"You want to know?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

That gave Kakashi pause. Why did he want to know? He had no stake in this, no reason but simple curiosity as to what had broken Gaara so badly, warped him into this bundle of raw nerves, abraded by the smallest sensation.

"He's obviously important to you," he ventured. Gaara looked down, red hair flopping forward to hide his eyes. The silence stretched between them for a long moment. Kakashi was just getting ready to stand up, thinking that Gaara wouldn't answer, when Gaara forced out,

"Yashamaru was my caretaker."

Kakashi sat back down and settled, recognizing the beginning of a long story, having heard many and told many himself. Gaara stared at his hands, utterly still, the words slow and halting as if they were being pulled from somewhere deep within.

"The Kazekage found out about Shukaku's powers before I was born. He decided that the demon would make a perfect weapon, if it could be controlled by being sealed inside someone. He impregnated my mother, and sealed the Shukaku in me while I was still unborn, using her soul as the sacrifice. The effects of bearing a demon inside her without her soul drove her insane." For a moment Kakashi wondered at the calm coldness of the words, so dispassionate, as if Gaara were telling the story of someone else.

"I tore her to pieces when I was born. She named me Gaara, the one who loves only himself, and placed a curse upon Suna, one that I was born to fulfill. Her blood became the sand that protects me. Mother protects me because as long as I am alive, I can kill and avenge her death. She died hating the village, hating me for killing her, and that hate became part of Yashamaru, my uncle." He paused, drawing a ragged breath. Kakashi said nothing, afraid that breaking the trance that Gaara was in would make him unable to draw the strength to continue the story.

"Yashamaru always took care of me. He told me about everything. He told me what pain was, what love was, what family was. He would take me out to the playground and push me on the swing when everyone else ran away. He'd give me crayons to draw with and stitch up my bear when it got ripped." Kakashi closed his eyes at the image of Gaara as a child, dragging a teddy bear, something well-worn and well-loved, something that Gaara loved with all the desperate feeling that no one else would accept.

"I tried so…" Gaara swallowed hard, "So hard to fit in. All I wanted was to be like the others. But every time I tried, it all went wrong." Gaara raised a hand restlessly, let it drop. "The Kazekage saw me as a failed experiment. He ordered me assassinated." Kakashi hissed, fingernails cutting into his palm. 'What kind of a man sacrifices his own son?' His throat ached with unshed tears for this boy who had wanted nothing more than to be loved.

"I killed them all. I think there were thirty. I didn't _want_ to kill them, I never did, but the sand did it for me. It crushed them all." Gaara went silent, his fingers clenching on the sheet. Kakashi moved a few inches closer, swallowed, and extended a hand, resting it tentatively on Gaara's knee. Gaara lifted his head and gazed at him for a moment, took a breath, and continued tonelessly,

"I was six when Yashamaru was ordered to kill me." Kakashi winced, his hand tightening on Gaara's knee and feeling the blood pump sluggishly under his fingers, feeling as if he had been stabbed, but he couldn't say that he hadn't expected this conclusion. "The sand injured him mortally. I didn't know that it was him, then. He took his hood off and lit the fuses for the explosives he had strapped to him. Then he-" Gaara sighed, long and low, "told me that he had always hated me, that everyone hated me, that they all just wanted to forget that I existed. He asked me to die."

He made a dry, hacking noise, that from any other person, in any other situation, would have been a laugh, but Kakashi only found it horribly sad, weighted with sorrow and sharp pain. "The sand wouldn't let me die. It never will, but I suppose he thought that I could make it let me die. I wanted to, so many times after that. That was when I-" he lifted a hand and touched the blood-red tattoo, so glaringly dark against marble-pale skin, "realized that no one loved me, and made this with the sand and my blood." He trailed off, his hand falling into his lap.

Kakashi was silent, the words stuck in his throat. What could he possibly say to this, to comfort? 'Thank you for trusting me,' seemed so terribly inadequate in the face of the gift that Gaara had given him, the trust of a man who had so little of it to spare.

He looked up when Gaara moved, the pale hand dipping down to catch a few tears, raising his hand to eye-level and inspecting them, his green eyes luminous and rimmed with salty liquid.

"Are these… tears?" The complete bewilderment in his voice was heartbreaking. Kakashi's chest ached with every breath, and he itched to reach out and hold this man who had never had anyone to do that, who needed help perhaps even more than Naruto. Help that he could give, something he could actually _do_ while Naruto suffered from pain he was unable to heal.

"Why am I crying?" Gaara tilted his hand, letting the tears fall onto the dark blue sheets with wet little splashes. His voice was slow, brimming full of pain and torment and boundless confusion, "Why… does my chest hurt?" Kakashi didn't know what to say. He opened his mouth, shut it again, cleared his throat, and tried,

"Because you're sad."

Gaara glanced up from the three black spots on the blue blanket at Hatake, gazing at the gray eye, lidded and dark with some sort of emotion.

He came to the conclusion that he didn't like sadness, didn't like the burning feeling in his eyes and the bone-deep ache in his chest and the clogged feeling in his nose. But how to get rid of it? When he first saw sadness, Temari had been rejected by some boy and was crying about it. Kankuro had… hugged her. It had appeared to help.

"May I," he paused, glancing up at Hatake, "have a hug?" Hatake breathed in sharply but nodded, taking his hand off Gaara's knee and opening his arms. Gaara slid out from under the sheets and slowly made his way over to Hatake's side. He looked up once more, meeting the gray, tired gaze, searching. Hatake nodded again, so Gaara leaned forward, carefully, fear thick in his throat and heart that this was a dream, that Hatake would vanish like smoke on the water or scream like everyone had when he was young and run from him-

But no, Hatake was _here_, solid and warm and real. His nose bumped into the sharp line of a collarbone, making him tilt his head upwards before he settled it on the older man's chest. Warm hands wrapped around his wrists, pulling them up and around the silver-haired man's waist. Gaara closed his eyes, cataloguing the sensations for future times, as he would never get this chance to get so close to anyone ever again.

The man smelled of sandalwood and sweat, a clean, earthen smell that reminded him of the desert and the dunes that had been his home. Warmth, something that was lacking here in winter, the first real winter he had ever seen, seeped through his thin shirt and into his skin, warming him. Hatake's arms moved, sliding up over his hips to wind around his shoulders and pull him flush against him, the older man rocking back and forth, his large hands pressing over his back. Gaara stiffened as the hands paused.

'_What…?'_ Kakashi felt Gaara stiffen against him as he brushed his fingers over his spine. It felt… wrong. Incredibly wrong. He skimmed his fingers downward to rest over Gaara's hips, than dragged them back up, feeling the line of bumps. Gaara shivered against him, his arms locking a little tighter. Except Gaara's spine wasn't a straight line, rather a twisted series of curves that almost resembled an 'S' shape.

"Gaara, what happened to your back?" He felt the younger man rest his forehead on his shoulder, warm breath stirring against his chest and surprisingly soft hair tickling his ear as he mumbled,

"It was the gourd."

"The gourd?" Gaara moved forward a bit and settled, folding his knees as he situated himself more comfortably. "It weighs over eighty pounds. I first started wearing it when I was seven." Kakashi continued absently running his hands up and down, feeling the dips of the ribs and the surprising warmth of his skin, although since he was from the desert…

He shouldn't be doing this. Shouldn't be touching a shinobi from another village in such a _familiar_ way, particularly not one that was capable of destroying Konoha singlehandedly.

But Gaara _needed_ this, he rationalized, feeling the younger man hold himself perfectly still, slender frame fitting against his chest. How long had it been since someone had simply held him, he wondered, providing comfort without expectation of reward? Gaara's breath traveled over his skin, making goosebumps appear in its wake as he breathed,

"You're the second person I've told all this to, after Naruto." Kakashi's arms tightened, his eye cutting to the side to glance at Gaara's pale, still face. No more tears, his lean frame all sharp lines and angles. Still hiding, but that was okay, this was progress; Gaara was allowing himself to seek comfort from someone, seeking human warmth and contact.

The man he had in his arms now was a million miles away from the terrifying boy he remembered from the Chuunin exams, who decimated the competition with a snarl on his lips and blood-encrusted sand flaking from his skin. Sakura's quivering, repulsed expression swam before his eyes, her words as clear as day in his ears.

'That is so… weird.' He shifted his weight, sliding his arms down to Gaara's waist as he tightened his hands and settled Gaara more comfortably. Sand hissed in the gourd, the ominous rattle loud in the silence.

"Be quiet, Mother," Gaara muttered. Kakashi felt hysterical laughter bubble up from his chest. He was so unprepared for this, so wrong for the role of confessor and caretaker of these two emotionally raw, suffering men. He was a _shinobi_, for God's sake! A killer, not a comforter, not like Iruka or Sakura.

"Gaara?" He spoke into the silence. The Sand shinobi made a quiet noise. Kakashi continued,

"Why me?"

Gaara's chest stopped moving for a moment, the thin arms locked around his waist tightening. Finally he said, finality in every syllable,

"You're warm."

Kakashi closed his eyes in incredulity. Warm? What a load of bullshit. Warm was Iruka, warm was Lee and Sakura and Obito and Rin and always, always Naruto, not him, prodigy and pervert and killer.

But even so, even though all that this could bring was pain, he couldn't bring himself to move from his spot on the bed with Gaara resting against his chest, alive and real as so few things were. He shouldn't be doing this.

Shouldn't have done a lot of things, really. But Gaara needed him, Naruto needed him, and that was enough.

The sun rose on the whitewashed house on the corner of the street, slanting down and inside Naruto's room. He threw an arm over his eyes, wincing as the ache in his hips and spine intensified, hovering right below the border of agony.

The door creaked open, Gaara entering with a plate of sliced fruit and a mug of tea thick with numbing solution.

"Thanks," he rasped, tears prickling his eyes at the pain in his throat. The Kyuubi, ecstatic at his plan coming closer and closer to fruition, had been especially rough last night. Naruto was sure that most of the skin on his back had been flayed by the scraping claws. Gaara nodded, set down the plate beside him, and came over, slipping an arm beneath his shoulders and pulling him into a sitting position.

Naruto sighed, white-hot pain ripping through him with every movement as he stabbed at the food with a fork. Gaara watched him, and Naruto was grateful for his silence, grateful for the lack of smothering pity.

Then Gaara opened his mouth.

"What is love?"

Naruto spit out his tea and spattered the expensive green sheets.

"What?"

Gaara's brow drew together.

"Are you having trouble hearing? Shall I send for a medical nin?"

"No, no, I'm fine! But why do you want to know?"

Gaara looked down at his hands for a moment before speaking,

"I think I love someone. I want to know if what I feel is true or not. You know everything about emotion, so the logical person to ask was you."

Naruto set his mug down on the nightstand.

"Uh, I'm flattered that you think that, I guess. But couldn't you have asked an _easier_ question?"

Gaara blinked. "Easier? What do you mean?"

"Well, what kind of love are you talking about? Romantic, or what?"

Gaara wrinkled his nose, and his expression was so (dare he say it) _cute._ "I'm not sure. I was told that I would never have the chance to experience romantic love and that no one would want such a thing from me."

"Okay, see, this is what we have to fix! You're a hot guy, I mean you have all those fangirls and… uh… never mind." Naruto shut his mouth, unsure as to how Gaara would react to being told by a male that he was good-looking. But the other vessel simply stared at him patiently. Naruto rolled his eyes and sank back into the pillows, hissing as he did so.

"Okay, let's see. Love is when you… damn, this is hard. Love is when someone else's happiness is more important to you than your own."

"So I have a romantic love for every person in my village?"

Naruto choked. "No, just let me finish, okay?"

Gaara nodded.

"You feel like you can tell them anything, and they aren't going to leave you or hate you for it. When you're around them you feel like you can do anything, like you're willing to do anything to make sure they're safe and happy and all that stuff."

"What about intercourse?"

Naruto managed not to choke this time. "Uh, we can deal with that one later. Anyway, if you love someone, you feel like this person understands you more than anyone else on the planet. They hug you when you're sad and make you laugh when you're upset. I guess the most important thing is…" he shrugged, thinking of silver hair and mismatched eyes, "you're willing to die for them. Does all that help?"

Gaara's breathing was loud in the silence. Naruto looked up as the floorboards creaked, and watched as Gaara rose from the chair, crossed in a deliberate fashion to his bed, and sat down, green eyes vivid in the dim light.

"Uh, Gaara? You okay?" Gaara tilted his head, gaze unnervingly intense and studying.

"If that is the definition of romantic love, than I think…" he leaned forward until their noses were touching, and Naruto found himself unable to breathe, drowning in green, his hands limp in his lap.

"I think I love you."

And then there were lips on his lips, something clumsy and inexperienced and unskilled but sweeter than honey all the same, a warm hand stealing up to bury itself in his hair. Naruto made a noise low in his throat as Gaara pulled back, opening his eyes - when had he closed them?- to see Gaara's expression, intense and thoughtful, before one corner of his mouth twitched upwards into the smallest of smiles as he repeated in a tone of utter wonder,

"I think I love you."


	10. Chapter 10

'_And I don't understand  
By the touch of your hand  
I would be the one to fall'_

- 'Sweet Surrender' by Sarah McLachlan

"I have a plan."

Neji looked up from his book, watching Shikamaru's fingers tap restlessly on the shogi board, the genius' eyes fixed on Shino's, who sat across from him, a cicada resting in his hair.

"What is it?" Chouji sat up, swallowing his last chip. Shikamaru glanced at him, then looked at where Lee and Sakura were sitting underneath the spreading branches of a weeping willow.

"You said that Naruto formed a contract with the Kyuubi that allowed the Kyuubi to have him every night, correct?" Neji inclined his head in a short nod, tucking his hands inside his coat. "Then," Shikamaru said, moving one of his pieces, "all we must do is distract Kakashi and Gaara, get them away from Naruto, and hold him down so he can't go to the forest that night, thus breaking the contract, thus stopping the…" he trailed off, setting another piece down with a clack.

"Rapes?" Shino finished. Shikamaru glared at him. "Yeah." He looked back down at the board again, and said heavily, no triumph or joy in his voice, "I win."

Neji looked around the park, watching Academy students, bundled in thick winter coats, play and whirl on the merry-go-round, their high-pitched voices raised in laughter. Old men ambled down the cobbled paths, their faces upturned to the warmth of the sun. Lee thrust a fist in the air and said something, making Sakura giggle.

It was all so… normal, and he hated it, hated this, hated that the world kept spinning and turning and going on as it had since the beginning of time, when Naruto, the best ninja of their generation, was suffering in a way no one could heal.

"All right," Neji said, closing his book. "Tell the others to meet at my house tonight at seven. Bring your own food." Shikamaru waved a hand in the air, already focused on his game.

* * *

Naruto stared, wide-eyed, at Gaara, who met his gaze with calm green eyes. _You… love me? He loves me? _Words stuck in his throat, unable to be expressed. He swallowed, breathing, "But… you can't." Gaara's expression darkened. "Why not?" Naruto shook his head in denial, hands clenching in the bedcovers. "Because… I'm dirty. You don't need someone like me who can't even give you what you need. I mean, just kissing you made me feel sick!" He looked down at his lap, wishing he could cry. "I'm sorry."

A clenched fist slammed into the wall by his head, making him flinch. He dragged his gaze upward to stare dully into green eyes burning with rage and sorrow.

"Don't tell me what I can't do!" Gaara snarled, the words poisonous. Naruto watched him for a moment, tracing the black rings around his eyes.

Gaara gentled his voice, "Did you think that was why I said I love you?"

Naruto looked away, glancing over the picture of the sea that hung on the wall. He missed the sea. One day he'd like to see it again.

"Answer me," Gaara said, his voice pleading.

Naruto looked back at him, feeling heavy and dull with leaden pain.

"You are Naruto," Gaara said, "and that's enough."

He stared at him for a long moment, unable to speak. What could he say? 'Thank you,' was so inadequate, unable to express what he felt at the moment. He opened his mouth, shut it again. Gaara touched his hand, sand rubbing against his skin in a reminder that Gaara understood, was the only one who could really understand just what he was, something both more and less than human.

"I'll think about it," he croaked. Gaara didn't smile but his expression lightened a tiny bit. "Good. I will be downstairs with Hatake. I believe he wants to get a closer look at my Sand Armor." Naruto laughed, the sound scraping against his throat. "That's Kakashi-sensei for you. He's always curious about new jutsu, especially one that's as cool as your Sand Armor."

Gaara studied him for a moment more, then picked his hand up and brought it to his mouth, his tongue flickering across the back of his hand, blood-warm and feral, something beyond normal, but beautiful all the same. He let go, rose from the bed, and crossed the room, glancing back at Naruto one time.

Green eyes disappeared behind the door, leaving Naruto alone. Drawing his legs to his chest, he wrapped his arms around his knees and rested his head on them, closing his eyes. He shuddered, fingers clenching and drawing blood, but he didn't cry.

In the end, he had at least that to be proud of.

* * *

Kakashi looked up from polishing his last kunai as Gaara came out onto the back porch, the pale man's mouth compressed into a tight line. Obviously something happened with Naruto… He said nothing, but instead stood and took the three steps down into the yard cratered from Gaara and Naruto's spar, feeling the other demon vessel follow him, silent as a shadow.

"Are you ready?" Gaara nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, his face smoothing out into peacefulness, something so rare for him. Sand flowed from the gourd, settling on his skin and almost merging with him. Kakashi raised his hand to his forehead protector and slipped a thumb under it, taking a breath- still so strange, even after all this years- as he pushed it up and let his Sharingan open.

Kakashi almost gasped at what he saw.

Chakra was blue, he knew this, except in the case of demons. But this was the first time he had seen demonic chakra, and for something so frightening, something that brought only sorrow, it was beautiful.

Golden as the sun, chakra flickered around Gaara's form, almost looking like he was surrounded by a halo of light. He smiled at that ridiculous thought, that someone who had killed over three hundred people could be angelic, before he focused further, looking closer. The chakra wasn't being produced. It was only residual power left over from the Shukaku, but that power was more than most jounin could ever hope to possess.

_That's strange…_ he circled Gaara to look at the gourd, focusing in on the sand within it. It wasn't made from Shukaku's yellow chakra or even Gaara's flickering blue flame, rather a deep, dark red, almost like blood in the moonlight.

Nausea roiled in his stomach at the realization that _this_ was Gaara's mother, a skeletal hand made of sand reaching out to torment her son from beyond the grave. The form outlined in gold moved to face him and came closer, stopping scant inches from him as he closed the Sharingan. Kakashi's breath froze in his throat at the first tentative brush of unskilled fingers over his closed eyelid. Sand rasped against his skin, his heart thumping in his chest as if he had just run a marathon.

"Gaara?" he whispered, surprised at the gentleness of the touch. Gaara's face was serious, his lower lip caught between his teeth as he brushed a thumb over Kakashi's face, tracing the long scar that went beneath the edge of his mask. Kakashi almost shivered, unable to tear himself away, long-denied wants aching in his chest. How long had it been since someone had just touched him like this, unafraid of the scars and the mask?

"I didn't think," Gaara said slowly, his brow wrinkled, "that the Sharingan Eye could be called beautiful." Kakashi swallowed.

"It's not really my eye," he offered. Gaara's fingers left, and Kakashi, absurdly, found himself missing it. "Thank you for letting me examine your chakra," he said, unable to think of anything else to say.

Gaara nodded. "It was not a problem." He looked down, red hair flopping over his eyes, and said, "Temari and Kankuro sent me some dates from Suna. Would you like to have some?"

Kakashi pulled his forehead protector down over his eye once more and smiled, looping an arm around Gaara's thin, frail shoulders. "I'd like that very much."

Gaara looked up at him, and smiled.

It wasn't a particularly big or toothy smile, or even a beautiful one. But Kakashi, seeing this expression on the face of a man whose shell even his siblings could not get through, resolved to do whatever it took to see that Gaara was like this more often.

For that smile.

* * *

Neji opened the door and let Sasuke in, the Uchiha still dressed in his ANBU uniform, snake mask dangling from one hand. The curse seal stood out lividly against his skin. Sasuke nodded to him and took up his regular position in the corner of the room, arms folded across his chest and katana dangling from his hip.

Sakura looked up from her position on the couch and gave him an apologetic smile. Neji narrowed his eyes; what could Sakura have to be apologetic about in the first place?

"Shikamaru has come up with a plan," he said, "where we distract Kakashi and Gaara and get them out of the safehouse. Once that's done, the rest of us can go inside the house and hold Naruto down, preventing him from fulfilling the stipulations in the contract, thus breaking it and stopping the abuse from continuing."

Hinata propped her chin on her fists, twisting from where she sat in Kiba's lap to stare at Neji.

"What distraction would we use?" Shino spoke up from the armchair, looking up from the moth perched on his finger, wings drifting in the gentle breeze of his breath.

"I have found that Kakashi gives a report on Naruto's progress to Tsunade every four days. If we could find a way to coincide our strike with Kakashi's absence, it would make it easier to subdue Gaara." The insect-nin winced as he finished his words, the skin around the lenses of his eyeglasses wrinkling. 'Did he have some experience with Gaara that frightened him?' Neji shifted his gaze, looking at the rest of the members of Team Eight, all of who paled at Shino's words.

_Interesting._

"Why can't we distract him and deal with him that way?" Lee rubbed fretfully at his arm, the remnants of a battle with a blood-soaked boy that had never quite faded. He grinned weakly, "Not that I'm volunteering!"

Sakura glared at him, mockingly waving a fist, "Try and I'll beat you to a bloody pulp myself."

"Yes, dear."

Sasuke stepped into the silence, "I could probably distract him with a spar."

Shikamaru shook his head, "Wouldn't work. Gaara's not going to leave Naruto's side for anything, even a spar. We would have to do something much more drastic to get him to even consider it."

"Seal the house to prevent Ninjutsu from being used inside, since he doesn't know taijutsu?" Kiba ventured.

Shikamaru twirled a kunai around his finger, considering. "That might work, but I don't think any of us know any seals powerful enough to contain a very pissed vessel."

"Ex," Sakura interjected. Shikamaru waved a dismissive hand, "Whatever. The point is, we can't fight him by ourselves unless we find a way to seal the house. I'd try to use the Eight Divination Sealing Style if I could, but that requires the sacrifice of someone's life, not to mention it's a forbidden technique that none of us know, and using it would make all of us into missing-nin. It would require breaking into the Hokage's Archives to find the scroll for it, and none of us are able to bypass the heavy guards on the archives."

Neji got up and crossed the room to his bookshelf, scanning the titles. _Guide to Elementary Kirigakure no Sato Jutsu_… no, _History of Tailed Demons_… nowhere close, _Fundamentals of Seals_, maybe. He slid the thin, green-leather-bound volume out from between the thick books and sat back down on the couch, flipping to the index.

"Look under 'Self-made Scrolls,'" Shikamaru suggested, leaning over to steal a ball of onigiri from Chouji. Chouji hit him. Sasuke picked out a book and sat down beside him, his pale face drawn and thin.

Neji dragged a finger down the page, flipped to another chapter, and stabbed a finger at the paper. "I've found something we can use." Sakura got up, shaking off Lee, and plopped down on the arm of the couch.

"This says that the creation of seals to make it so Ninjutsu can't be used within a given space is relatively easy, but the measure of how much power the seal will suppress is based on the blood of the ink-maker. Gaara has more power than any of us…" he trailed off, turned a few pages, and continued, "but we could combine our blood in the ink, which should be able to hold him for long enough.

The supplies are easy to find, I've got them around, and the rest are easily gotten from the stalls in the marketplace." He closed the book and looked up, knitting his fingers together as he gazed at the assembled shinobi levelly. "Are you willing to donate your blood for Naruto's sake?"

"That is a stupid question," Hinata said, her white eyes, colder than ice, somehow profane on such a gentle face, boring into him. "Of course we will. He has saved all of us, and now we have a chance to repay the debt, how could we refuse?" Neji almost winced. Of course, how could he have forgotten the love Hinata had borne for Naruto for years? Love like that did not fade easily like the snow under sunlight.

"I'm… sorry." The words felt thick and useless in his mouth. He rose and went into the kitchen, not wanting to feel her accusing gaze, and pulled a small glass bowl from the cabinet, taking it to the living room and placing it on the coffee table. He removed a kunai and held it over his palm.

A heartbeat of silence as he cut, feeling cells split and die under the blade, red blood welling from the long slash, the dim, pale white of the metacarpals visible through the thin layer of muscle separating them from the open air. He tilted his hand and watched the blood drip into the bowl, passing it to Sakura, who sterilized it with a few quick seals before doing the same and placing her hand over the bowl, palm-down.

As their blood mingled and the knife was passed around the room, Neji glanced out the window, watching the red, red sun touch the rim of the earth, the dim corona of red haze rimming the star, for a long, terrifying moment, seeming to take the shape of nothing so much as the leering, lolling grin of the Kyuubi, laughing at their feeble attempts to stop a demon of such power as he, the king of demons, a beast of pure chakra, a being who could uproot the mountains with one casual sweep of its paw. What could they do against _he_, the fox seemed to ask, immortal, indivisible, apocalyptically powerful?

Neji turned his head away, closed his eyes tightly, and shuddered.

* * *

Naruto sat with his legs crossed on the couch, a bowl of ramen held in one hand and Gaara's head resting in his lap, Naruto's free hand resting on Gaara's thin shoulder. 

"Gaara?" One blackened lid cracked open, an annoyed green slit staring up at him. "I kind of need my hand back to eat my ramen, you know?" Gaara made a low noise, but twitched his shoulder in acceptance.

"Yeah, I know that you're cold, but there's a blanket on the end of the couch if you're really that freezing!" Naruto scolded, cracking his chopsticks apart and beginning to slurp the noodles into his mouth, smacking his lips_. . Oh, ramen, how would I ever live without you?_ Gaara's head crash-landed in his lap, the younger boy dragging the thick green blanket up over his shoulders.

Naruto yelped, catching the spilled ramen in his palm and licking it up. "Gaara!" he whined. "You made me spill my ramen!" Gaara grumbled, closing his eyes and pointedly ignoring him. Naruto huffed and turned his attention back to the television, changing the channel to the soap opera channel.

"Look, Gaara! _All My Shinobi _is on!" A hand made of sand made a threatening gesture from the corner where the gourd lay. He sighed, leaned back into the couch, and slurped up more of the noodles, looking up as Kakashi ambled into the room, dressed in ratty gray sweatpants and shirt.

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei! Come watch TV with us- well, me, Gaara's sleeping."

"I'm _trying_ to," Gaara muttered from beneath the blanket. Kakashi crossed the room, grabbed Gaara's feet, lifting them into the air, and plopped onto the couch, putting Gaara's feet on his lap.

"Naruto, you can call me Kakashi, you know," his old teacher said mildly, resting his arms on Gaara's legs, drumming his fingers on the bottom of Gaara's soles. Gaara's toe twitched as a disgruntled redhead emerged from beneath the blanket, looking down the couch at Kakashi.

"What are you doing?" His voice was hesitant. Kakashi smiled underneath the mask, his voice gentle as he answered, "Nothing, really. I need something to do with my fingers, don't I?" Naruto glared at Kakashi, who smiled angelically.

_Once a pervert, always a pervert_, Naruto thought wryly, turning back to his show and ignoring the jealousy bubbling inside him. Gaara glanced at Kakashi, then at Naruto, his eyes huge in the light and confused. Naruto patted him on the shoulder absently, watching Kazuma confess his love to the reptilian love-child of his evil clone and his step-mother.

Gaara lay back down, resting his head and closing his eyes. Naruto's breath hitched for a moment at the realization that this was normality, this was something beautiful, here on the squeaking couch with Kakashi and Gaara's head on his lap and horrible soap operas on the television and ramen in his hand-

This was normal, he was okay (I'm okay, I'm okay, I can try and stand up), and there was no place else on earth he would rather be.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** This chapter was betaed by AisCrim. Also, to comply with Terms of Service, the NC-17 portion of the i chapter has been cut out. You can find the a link to the full version in my profile.

* * *

Naruto sat cross-legged on the couch, restlessly flipping through the channels. 'Don't think. Don't anticipate.' He blocked his thoughts, his plan, because if he let them through then he would lose all courage, all strength and stubbornness, and the fox would have truly won.

It would have really broken him.

A groan escaped his clenched teeth as the remote fell from nerveless fingers, while he curled his body around the seal on his stomach, the seal that now burned like Kabuto was carving it into his flesh with a red-hot scalpel.

"Ahh…" the pained breath was loud in the silence. A trickle of sand appeared beside him and reformed into an eye. He grimaced and waved his free hand, pressing the other to his stomach, which burned under his touch.

"He's calling." The sand whirled away, and Gaara came down the stairs, his cold fingers catching him by the wrists, stroking over the pounding veins beneath the skin. Naruto shuddered under the touch, something so gentle from someone so feared.

"Let me help you." Naruto glanced up, and seeing no condemnation, nodded in resignation. Gaara looped an arm around his waist and pulled him to his feet, brushing his knuckles across Naruto's cheek. The other vessel's voice was serious,

"If I could bear this pain for you, I would." Naruto smiled painfully, coughing. Blood sprayed in a fine mist from his mouth and spattered the carpet. "I need to go," he rasped, turning away. Gaara went with him, sending a tendril of sand to wake Kakashi.

The jounin appeared beside them, his visible eye dark with sadness and grief. He took in the situation with a glance, sighed, and scooped Naruto up, letting him lay his head against Kakashi's shoulder.

"I can walk, you know," he mumbled, stiffening as another spasm raced through him. The fox was getting impatient.

"True," Kakashi said, "but why should you have to?" Naruto closed his eyes and relaxed against Kakashi's muscled chest. If Kakashi would take the burden of walking, all the better.

He would need this strength to face the Kyuubi.

* * *

Naruto turned his head and looked up at Kakashi and Gaara, both high up in the branches of one of the trees that circled the clearing. One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked grin. Gaara spoke finally,

"I do not want to watch this again." Kakashi looped an arm around the frail shoulders and drew the younger man close, more for his own comfort then anything else.

"Neither do I, but we must bear witness." There was silence in the clearing, and the tsunami of fire came, the thundering fading away finally and leaving the red figure standing, still and proud, in the center of a circle of scorched earth.

"Naruto," the fox's voice rumbled low in his chest, "Come here." Naruto raised his head, and the reply was so small, so quiet, strange for something so monumental.

"No." The fox stepped forward, gliding across the clearing to stand in front of Naruto's wiry, scarred form. Lips peeled back, exposing reddened teeth.

The Kyuubi's fingers flared wide, and bladed claws of red chakra sprang from them, sizzling in the cold air of the evening. Naruto's lips curled into a smirk, but he said nothing, and the silence was the Kyuubi's answer. The fox's tongue lolled in a terrible attempt at a grin, inhuman, unfeeling. The Kyuubi reached forward, the claws closing around Naruto's head in a grotesque parody of affection, of a lover's caress.

Kakashi could smell the stench of burning flesh.

"Is that all?" The Kyuubi's voice was amused, the soft tone somehow carrying the rage of a thousand years, the crashing of tsunamis and the crackle of lightning. Naruto said nothing. The Kyuubi sighed, and the claws tightened, cutting into skin and tearing.

The fox pulled his hand back and slashed the air, claws whipping through skin and shoving Naruto to the ground, where he lay unmoving, the blood a dark stain in the moonlight. Naruto got up and spat in the fox's face. The Kyuubi reached up wonderingly and touched the phlegm, then grinned.

"It has been a long time since anyone dared to stand up to me." Naruto's breaths were harsh and ragged in the stillness, but he didn't attack. Because now, here, he had finally accepted-

That there was nothing he could do.

The fox snarled and shoved him down again, planting a hard foot in his belly. Naruto staggered to his feet again, with blood staining his hair brown and torn skin hanging from his cheekbone, and spat in the Kyuubi's face. The fox roared and slashed the air, red chakra claws burning as they passed over Naruto's grimly smiling face.

Kakashi closed his eyes against the sight of Naruto getting back up again, again and again only to be slapped down, not because he wanted to, but because it was his duty.

Because it was the only thing he could do.

_'Just stay down. Don't get back up to be humiliated, don't-' _and Naruto didn't listen, but only stood and bled and stared into blood-red eyes with a defiant grin on his lips and pale face wild in the moonlight. Kakashi had never felt so proud or so sad in his life.

"Why do you defy me? Have you forgotten the contract?" The fox's voice was puzzled, and it was all Kakashi could do to control his hate for this animal, this beast that wounded without even realizing just what terrible harm it was doing. Naruto's voice bubbled in his chest,

"As long as you have me before the sun rises, the contract holds, and I'm going to choose the time."

_'Punctured lungs,' _Kakashi thought numbly, staring down with Gaara's twisted spine cradled in his arms and cold pride in Naruto like a blade through his chest.

_'Like a butterfly beating its wings against the dark…'_ the strange thought drifted slowly through his head. And as he watched with Gaara's thin back pressing into his chest, as if in affirmation that there was good in the world, in the human heart, he looked away from the doomed battle in front of him, and for the first time in over twenty years, asked the gods to help the world.rld

* * *

Gaara leaped from the tree as the demon disappeared, just in time to keep Naruto from hitting the scorched earth. There was blood everywhere, slick on his hands and somehow cold, so cold, even in the midst of flame. Naruto coughed again, and Gaara could feel each solitary, curving rib, fragile as glass, press against his hands.

They shuddered, and he turned his gaze to see that Naruto was laughing, tears in his eyes and blood running from his torn face.

"I did it, Gaara," he slurred, "Made him think twice, huh?" Gaara lifted a hand to Naruto's chin and cupped it, brushing a tentative thumb across the sweep of his bottom lip.

"Yes, Naruto. I am…" he paused, unsure if this was right to say, if he should be proud of the fact that Naruto stood up, and received only more pain, "happy for you." Shredded muscles contorted Naruto's bloody lips into a half-smile.

Hatake came up beside him, reaching down to accept Naruto's drugged weight from him. Gaara turned him over, but looked up at Hatake, watching the way the moonlight turned his silver hair and the eye that saw only the past- and Obito, as Hatake had told him over coffee and crumbled toast in the middle of the night- into molten mercury.

He was a beautiful man. Gaara wondered if one could only love one other person, if love was something parceled out to them at birth, and giving some of it away meant that you would never get it back. That had been his father's way; to give all of his love to Temari, and none for anyone else.

"We should return to the house, Hatake-san." A long-fingered hand landed on his shoulder, making him shiver at this touch, still so new, so frightening that anyone would.

"You can call me Kakashi, Gaara." Gaara blinked, looking up at the dark gray eye. Kakashi's lips curved into a sad smile underneath the mask, and somehow, even though Gaara had sworn when he was younger that no one would ever be able to-

Kakashi understood.

"Let's go clean Naruto up," Kakashi said, turning. Gaara turned with him, and towards their distant rest began to trudge.

* * *

Naruto stared up at the ceiling, feeling heavy, dull, and dumb, rolled up like a mummy in bandages on the couch in his room. '_ Is this what Kakashi feels like all the time?'_ he thought, sticking an experimental tongue out to lick the bandages.

There was nothing but the taste of blood. He turned his head slowly and gazed at the doorway, watching Gaara and Kakashi move around each other in the upstairs hallway. A tendril of sand came, bearing a cup of numbing tea for his throat.

He reached out and wrapped stiff fingers around the cup, bringing it to his lips. It burned. Bright stars burst behind his eyelids, and he set it aside, turning his head to stare at them. His pelvis hurt; it was broken.

"Kakashi?" he said into the darkness. The older man looked up and crossed the room to him, bending over him, his eyes heavy-lidded and almost tender. He was amazing in the dawning light.

"Yes?"

Naruto let himself relax into the couch, and slurred out his question,

"Is it always supposed to be like this?"

Kakashi's face froze into a terrible mask of sadness.

"Oh, Naruto. No. It was never supposed to be like this."

Gaara came into the living room too, his eyes wide and luminous in the dim light.

"What is it supposed to be like?" Gaara said, Kakashi's shoulders slumped, and he brought a hand to his face, sighing. "I can't explain. These things can't be expressed in words, you know. It's something you have to experience for yourself." Naruto ached, somewhere deep inside him, for Kakashi to show him, for a chance to show Gaara. Gaara's long-fingered hand drifted up to touch Kakashi's face, the former vessel's face serious.

"Show me."

Kakashi stilled like Naruto's breath. His voice was stifled and hoarse in the silence, one hand coming up to trap Gaara's hand beneath it, fingers curling around Gaara's palm.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Kakashi looked down, silver hair drooping into his face. "Because you don't really want me. You're not old enough to really know what you want-"

"Bullshit," Naruto croaked. The spell broken, he shrank back into the covers as Kakashi's lone eye bored into him, but he plunged on,

"Gaara and I- we were never really children in the first place. I know what I want, and he knows what he wants, and he wants you. And if you don't like him the same way, that's fine, but don't treat us like we're five fucking years old!" He coughed, ribs grating against each other. Kakashi stared at him. "But- I'm fifteen years older then him."

"Tsunade's fifty years older then Shizune, but I don't see them complaining." Gaara turned to him, his thin face grave and green eyes glowing in the light.

"Is this all right with you, Naruto?" He smiled underneath the bandages, and nodded feebly. _'Kakashi's a good man. Hot, too. He'll treat you right.'_

"Now wait just a minute-" Kakashi protested, only to be cut off by Gaara stepping closer and bringing his other hand up to cup his face, the dark head tilted.

* * *

Kakashi stared into the mesmerizing green eyes, paralyzed. _'I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't. He's damaged, he's broken, he doesn't know what he wants-'_ but he was so beautiful, so wanting and terrible in his allure. Gaara's slow voice, deep and soft, cut through the silence like a knife.

"I would rather have you show me then anyone else."

Kakashi tilted his head back and felt sorrow and a sort of lost, saddened love well in his chest. Such uncompromising trust, given from a man who had never been trusted, never been loved, such a gift. To refuse such a gift… it seemed like sacrilege.

"Are you certain?" he murmured. Gaara, holding his eyes, drowning him in green like new life, nodded. He turned to Naruto, unsure of what to say, but his former student, always so perceptive, so knowing, said,

"I want to watch. I want to see…" he paused, the heartbeat of silence hanging between them, "what it should be like." Kakashi closed his eyes._ 'And this is the end.'_ He disentangled his hand from Gaara's and brought them up to his mask, curling them around the lip of the cloth.

With a soft rustle, he drew the mask down, exposing the long scar that curled over his Sharingan eye and down to bisect his lower lip. A cool finger traced the line, and he opened both of his eyes to see Gaara's face, serious and concentrating, close to his own.

He was really a beautiful man.

"I'd like to kiss you now," he said, catching Gaara's hands in his own and feeling the blood thrum through them. "Is that okay?" He waited, breath frozen in his lungs. He'd had many lovers before, some of them virgins, but never anyone so completely new to any form of affection. Gaara nodded. He stooped and cupped Gaara's thin face in his hands, and sealed his mouth over the younger man's.

Gaara stiffened for a moment, surprised, and then he melted into him, boneless and limp. _'He's… sweet,'_ Kakashi thought, feeling warmth unfurl inside his chest.

He traced Gaara's lips with his tongue, asking for entrance, and took it as soon as Gaara opened his mouth, tasting the green tea Gaara had drank last, rain and cold and mist, the kiss slow and thorough.

His hands slid down Gaara's arms and dipped beneath the hem of his shirt, rising upward and tracing the bumps of his spine. Gaara shuddered against him, the younger man's arms locking around his waist, pale in the dim light, his head falling back in abandon. He left Gaara's mouth and trailed a path down to his neck, tasting sweat and earth and skin, fingers smoothing down the former Sand-nin's sides to rest on the jarringly sharp hipbones. He bit down for a moment, sucking until he felt the blood vessels pop, loving Gaara's high whine in his ear, and laved the area in apology, pulling himself away from the rapidly bruising area to run a curious hand through Gaara's hair.

"Did I go too fast? I'm sorry."

Gaara snorted, his hands coming up to catch Kakashi's shoulder and tug him back down.

"I liked it. Do it again, please?"

Kakashi smiled, slid an arm around Gaara's waist, and lifted him, carrying him to the bed in the corner. Gaara sat up as he laid him down and reached out for his gray shirt.

"Can I…?"

Kakashi shrugged out of it easily and dropped it on the floor, stretching out on the bed full-length beside Gaara's much smaller form. Gaara studied him for a moment, bottom lip caught between his teeth, and for a moment Kakashi wanted to laugh at him, always so serious, treating everything as a matter of life or death. Unskilled fingers brushed down the center of his chest, tracing the myriad of old scars, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Banked fire bloomed wherever Gaara touched, slowly moving downward, coiling like a living thing.

"You're amazing," Gaara said wonderingly. Kakashi closed his eyes, reminded all over again of just how terribly this man had been hurt, how long he had lived in sorrow and solitude, and he wondered again if he had the strength or the skill to ease even a fraction of that pain.

He could try.

* * *

Gaara stretched languidly, pale and luminous in the dim light, and laid his head on Kakashi's shoulder, breath fanning out over his chest and making his skin shudder in its wake. Kakashi let his hand rest on the back of Gaara's head, cupping his skull and feeling the strange fragility there.

"You all right?" Gaara sighed, peering out from under his lashes. He smiled, and it was just as heartbreaking the second time as the first.

"I'm fine. I feel very good, actually. But you didn't…" he gestured helplessly. Kakashi traced a few seals on Gaara's shoulder, unable to abandon the warmth and slip-sleekness of his skin, closing the Sharingan eye.

"No; I didn't want to. This was only for you, not for me."

There was a rustle from the corner, and he looked over to see Naruto's blue eyes gazing out from a bloody, bandaged face. A cracked, shuddering sob split the air like a bolt of lightning, as Naruto finally,_ finally_ understood just what it was he had lost those long, long seven years in darkness.

* * *

'And towards their distant rest began to trudge.' - A line from Dulce Et Decorum Est. 


	12. Chapter 12

_It's not gonna be alright.  
It's not gonna be okay._

'Dreaming in Dog Years' by the Red Chord

* * *

Neji deactivated the Byakugan, moving back into the branches of the oak as Kakashi left the house, book held before his face. _'Good. Now to deal with Gaara.'_ He motioned to Shino, who nodded, removing the large vial of ink from his jacket. A moth fluttered down from the street lamp outside, took the uncorked vial, and flew away to trace a circle of blood around the house.

Hinata gave him a thumbs-up, allowing him to signal Sasuke. The last Uchiha closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and descended the tree to stand illuminated in the pool of warm light cast by the street lamp.

His shadow seemed to stretch for miles. Points of blue chakra flamed from Sasuke's gloved fingers as he knelt, finishing the last hand seal, and slammed his hands onto the circle of blood, activating the Ninjutsu seal.

"Go," Neji whispered, watching Sasuke and Sakura melt from the darkness and take the stairs to the front door.

* * *

Gaara stiffened as the sand of his gourd collapsed in on itself, showering the carpet in brown_. 'Shit.'_ He crossed the room and drew the curtain back an inch, looking out at the blue circle of light surrounding the safe house. He ran a few preliminary seals for a Henge, and cursed aloud when nothing happened, leaning forward as a few people moved towards the house, easily seen.

_'Wait. Naruto's _friends_ are doing this?'_ He tried to control his rage, feeling the blood throbbing in his head. He wiped sweaty palms on his pants, the coppery stench of fear thick in his nose.

"Naruto." His voice shook. "Your friends have sealed the house against Ninjutsu. I can only assume they've found out about the Kyuubi somehow, and are going to try to break the contract. That cannot be allowed to happen."

Naruto closed his eyes, and he looked so exhausted, so resigned, the blue shadows of his eyes veiled.

"Yeah. The end of the world isn't something I want to have on my shoulders."

Gaara stepped away from the window, swallowing as he saw the front door cave inward. "Head for the woods. I'll hold off the rest of them for as long as I can. Can you run with your pelvis broken?" His mouth was dry. Naruto shrugged. _'He'll do what he needs to.'_

"Gaara?" Naruto's voice was terribly small.

"Yes?" Naruto opened his eyes and lifted one side of his torn mouth in a sad parody of a grin.

"The fox is laughing." Gaara crossed the room to him, snarled, "Go!" and rushed towards the front door. As if from a great distance, he heard Naruto leave the house. He turned back to the door in time to see it crash to the floor. _'This… is a battle I can't win.'_ He firmed his resolve, slid into a basic stance, and waited.

* * *

"Gaara." Sasuke stepped forward, his booted feet crunching on the splinters of the door. Neji, Sakura, and Shino were behind him.

"Uchiha," Gaara acknowledged. Sasuke stopped, seeing a kunai gleam in Gaara's left hand. The fear of this boy, that had never really left him, slithered up into his chest.

"Where is Naruto?"

Gaara smirked, and in the lamplight, his eyes- like a demon's- were as yellow as fear.

"He's not here."

"Please," Sakura stepped forward, freezing as the pale, baleful gaze swung to her- like a rat before a snake, Sasuke thought distractedly- "we only want to help him. You're his friend- help us!"

"You can't help him," Gaara bit out, "by meddling in things you don't understand. Just go back to your lives and leave him in peace. He deserves that much consideration, at least."

"Will you move aside?"

Gaara's gaze flickered to Shino. He smiled, lips peeling back from teeth and exposing a fanged, gaping grin.

"No."

Sasuke launched himself towards the smiling Sand-nin, dodging the clumsy swing of his kunai, and threw him to the ground, coiling a hand in red hair and jerking his head up, ready to bash that grimly smiling face into the ground, the face of this man who called himself Naruto's 'friend.'

Gaara twisted under him, snarling in a voice that held the echoes of Shukaku, stilling only as Sasuke removed his tanto from its sheath and held it to the pale throat.

"You are _going_," he didn't recognize his own voice, "to tell me where Naruto is, and so help me God if you don't I have no reservations about killing you right now." Gaara went limp under him, his head falling forward. There was a sort of sad triumph in his voice,

"It doesn't matter. My life means nothing." Neji stepped forward and crouched beside them, sliding a hand under Gaara's chin and lifting his head.

"Then it's a good thing we have Shikamaru, Chouji, and the rest in the woods, isn't it?"

Gaara laughed hoarsely.

"You are _such_ fucking idiots. You would condemn the world to-" he went slack, blood running from the rapidly growing bruise on the back of his skull. Sasuke flipped his tanto around and slid it back into the sheath.

"We don't have time for him. We need to get to Naruto."

Neji nodded, rose from his crouch, and offered a hand to Sasuke. The four shinobi hurried through the house, leaving Gaara lying in the wreckage of the doorway.

* * *

"God damn it, get off me!" Naruto bucked under Kiba's weight, jerking against Shikamaru's shadows holding him fast to the ground and ignoring Hinata's gentling hand. Neji paused.

"We can't do that," Hinata was nearly crying. Naruto threw his head back, slamming it against the earth, and howled to the night sky above them, his spine bent in a straining bow.

He caught sight of them and fell back to the ground, his eyes wide and betrayed. "Sasuke? Sakura? You guys, too?"

Sakura's smile was watery as she crossed the clearing and knelt beside him, placing a soothing hand on his cheek.

"We're here to help you, don't worry." Naruto's voice cracked. "'Help… me?' No, let me go, because it's coming and-" his eyes were blue fires in the darkness, tears flowing, "and if it doesn't get me then it'll summon the eight demons and it'll be the end, don't you see? Don't you _understand_!?"

"You didn't need to do this for us, Naruto," Sasuke's voice was quiet, as if he was talking to a delusional child. "We would have loved you just the same." Naruto stared at them, and then he threw back his head and screamed. The sound tore from his throat, a rising shriek of pain and betrayal and denial and agony so terrible that Neji wanted to weep-

A red light was glowing beneath Naruto's shirt_. 'Oh no.'_

"Everyone, get back!" Neji roared, but his voice was lost in the mounting windstorm of noise. The sound was like that of a sheet of paper as large as the universe ripping, like the cry of a thousand damned souls, like glass fracturing and splintering and rubbing against each other, and all the while the light was growing bigger and bigger, and Neji was ready to scream- the pressure of the mistake he had made inside his head was too great-

And then there was silence. Neji looked up into molten amber eyes that held Hell in their depths.

Nine great tails of burning chakra twined through the air, and Neji could feel his skin blister. The Kyuubi's skin was as pale as alabaster, its hair as red as blood in sunlight. Neji scrambled backward, unable to look away from this creature in front of him, feeling chakra as wide and deep as the universe yawn in front of him, waiting to swallow the world.

And then the beast… _spoke_.

"So these are the ones I have to thank for allowing me to end their world? Rather scrawny group." It stepped off Naruto's limp body and onto the forest floor, gliding towards the center of the clearing. The grass died wherever it touched. Neji jerked around to look at the rest, who all stared at the Kyuubi with mouths agape. More than one of them had tears shimmering on their cheeks.

Neji vomited. The Kyuubi stopped in the center of the clearing and cast a scornful glance back at them, fangs gleaming in the darkness.

"Were this world to survive, all humanity would curse your names as the harbingers of their destruction." It flung its arms wide, casting the shadow of a cross across the clearing, tilted its head back, and roared to the sky,

"Tailed beasts! I, who have been sealed in the belly of a child, summon you once more. Heed my call and answer me.

Shukaku, incarnation of desert and insanity, heed my call in Akatsuki's prison and come to me.

Nibi-neko, incarnation of fire and hate, heed my call in Akatsuki's prison and come to me.

Sanbi, incarnation of water and sorrow, heed my call in Akatsuki's prison and come to me.

Yonbi, incarnation of poison and rage, heed my call from your human prison and come to me.

Gobi, incarnation of wood and deception, heed my call from your human prison and come to me.

Rokubi, incarnation of lightning and terror, heed my call from your human prison and come to me.

Shichibi, incarnation of night and sin, heed my call from your human prison and come to me.

Hachibi, incarnation of twilight and death, heed my call from your human prison and come to me."

Neji's throat worked, but he could say nothing, could do nothing to stop the end of their world from approaching them, could do nothing to erase the knowledge that this was their fault. The Kyuubi roared one last time,

"Come to me, and we shall engulf the world!" And then the demon was gone.

Kiba screamed. Neji turned from the darkness in front of him, to see Kiba's face, pale as the moon, upturned, his finger pointed, trembling sickly, at the sky. He looked and nearly vomited again.

Far above them, softly, silently, the stars were blinking out, one by one.

* * *

Kakashi jerked as he came around the corner, his eyes narrowing at the smashed state of the door. '_Akatsuki? No. They wouldn't leave a calling card.' _He reached up, shifted his headband, and opened the Sharingan.

_'Sasuke's chakra is in the seal, but it- ah, now it's gone. Naruto's friends must have-'_ he froze. _'No.'_ He sprang into action, sprinting towards the doorway, heart hammering in his chest.

Gaara lay on the floor, his pale face stained with blood, dull green eyes staring out at nothing. Kakashi crossed the room in one long stride and knelt by him, checking his pulse. It thudded, slow but strong, under his fingers. _'At least he's alive.'_ Carefully, he channeled chakra into Gaara's head, probing delicately for the source of the contusion. _'No internal bleeding, good. Now just turn it like… so-'_ Gaara jerked in his grip, coughing wetly.

"Kakashi!" Never had he seen him so close to panic. "They went after Naruto and-" Kakashi slid his arms under Gaara and lifted him, using his free hand to perform the seals for teleportation.

With a soft pop they were gone. They came back to earth at the edge of the clearing, and Kakashi felt himself go very still.

Naruto lay in the center of the clearing, unmoving, his eyes closed and hands outflung. His chest barely rose and fell at all. Kakashi raised his head to stare at the gathered Rookie Nine. They flinched and quailed away under his gaze. Even Sasuke, bold Sasuke, unrepentant and arrogant, looked away, tears shining in the darkness.

"What have you done?" he whispered. Neji opened his mouth, but he cut him off, "My _god_, what have you _done?!_" He let Gaara go, distantly aware of Gaara's going to Naruto, but the fury inside him was so great that the world seemed awash in blood. He found himself across the clearing without any knowledge of how he had gotten there, hands curled in Sasuke's shirt as he shook him back and forth, heedless of Sakura's calming hand, snarling with hatred, hatred for the end of their world,

"I'll kill you! I'll rip you to _fucking pieces_, you arrogant little bastard!"

"We only meant it for the best," Sasuke whispered. Kakashi stopped, and set Sasuke back on the ground, old, old pain welling inside him.

"Yeah. Yeah, everyone always means it for the best. But-" he closed his eyes and struggled for control, fingers curling into trembling fists, "didn't he _tell_ you what would happen?" They all looked away. He laughed, the sound harsh and deadened.

"And you didn't listen, did you? For once in your lives, you didn't fucking listen, and because of that Konoha's going to be wiped off the face of the earth. I-" he turned away, hunching his shoulders.

"Did you not trust me?" His voice was flat. "Didn't you know that we would have stopped the rapes if we could? If I didn't do anything, if the Hokage didn't do anything, couldn't you have figured out that there was a reason? You're a genius, Nara. Why didn't you use your brains? If you didn't trust me, you should have trusted _Naruto_. Or did you not trust him either?"

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said, her voice trembling, "the sky." He looked up at the vast expanse of darkness above them, fighting against the vertigo behind his eyes. "Naruto said that would happen. It's the first of many omens, but no worries-" he felt his lips stretch into a pained sneer, "we won't be around to see the rest of them." Gaara stood, holding Naruto's limp body close to him, and walked towards them, the grass crumbling to ash beneath his feet.

"Go home," Kakashi said heavily, "the Hokage will want to speak to you all in the morning. Go home." As if from a great distance, he heard them disappear with little pops. He turned, slowly, and put his arms out to accept Naruto's warm weight, gazing down at the still face.

"It was all for nothing, in the end," he said, turning away and beginning to walk towards the house. Gaara's hand stole out and captured his own.

"No." The former vessel's voice was firm. "Naruto did it for something. He did it for us, so we could be happy."

"Is there even happiness anymore?" Gaara stepped in front of him, freed his hand, and reached up, cupping his face as he stretched onto his toes. Dry lips brushed across his own.

"We can find that out for ourselves. But I am happy with you." He smiled weakly in reply. "Thanks."

* * *

Naruto opened his eyes and stared at the blank whiteness of the ceiling. _'Ug-ly! Jeez, we could have painted it anything other then white.'_ Without thought, his hand drifted down to rest on the seal on his belly, feeling the strange warmth burn through the thin cotton of his shirt.

_'Don't think about-'_ his hand curled into a fist_, 'Don't. It didn't happen. I just went to bed last night and that was it, really.'_ Tears burned in his eyes. _'Nothing happened, nothing-'_

He took a shuddering breath. It did happen. He remembered it.

"I should hate them," he said aloud to the silence.

"But you don't," Kakashi said from the doorway. Naruto rolled his head to stare at the tall man, at the drawn lines of his face and the dark shadows under his visible eye. "I want to hate them," he whispered. Kakashi crossed the room, took a graceless seat on the side of the bed, and took his hand, a restless thumb tracing the veins on the back of his hand.

"They only meant it for the best." Naruto closed his eyes, feeling a sob stick in the back of his throat, terrible and unfocused. "That's all… anyone ever means it for." Kakashi's hand left.

"I'd like to be alone for a while," he said. Kakashi's weight left the bed, a warm hand stroking his forehead for a solitary moment. "Okay, then." A heartbeat of silence. "Okay, then."

The door clicked shut. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling again. _'I guess… this is it.'_ Slowly, he raised his thumb to his mouth and bit into the pad, feeling blood spring across his tongue. A few seals later, he lay back down.

A weight sprang into being on his chest. He looked down and grinned weakly at the orange frog on his chest, raising a heavy hand to scratch Gamakichi's eye ridges. "How you doing?" Gamakichi blinked, tilting his head.

"Fine. What happened to you?"

"Kyuubi."

"Ah." Naruto sighed, stilling his hand and letting it rest on Gamakichi's vest for a long moment.

"You remember when we discussed the Last Summon Clause?"

"What, that the last wish of a summoner has to be carried out? Yeah, you mentioned that there was going to be a time that was going to come in handy."

Naruto closed his eyes, breathing,

"It's time."

Gamakichi rested a flipper on Naruto's cheek, his voice uncharacteristically grave. "What is your wish, summoner?"

"Go into Akatsuki's lair. There's a scroll there that's marked 'Demonic Power Harnessing Jutsu'. It harnesses the power of a demon inside a person and transforms them into that demon for a little while, giving them control of all the chakra. The leader wanted to use it on himself. Bring it to me, and I'll release you from your contract."

The flipper left, and he opened his eyes to stare into yellow ones.

"This is your wish?"

He smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, that's it."

Gamakichi nodded. "I'll have that scroll for you by tomorrow evening." The summon paused awkwardly. "I've enjoyed working with you."

"Me too. Now get going!"

Gamakichi disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and Naruto sat up.

"Well, now I've just got to convince the old hag of my plan. Why do I feel a sense of impending doom?"


	13. Chapter 13

_A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;_

_Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him._

'Parable of the Old Man and the Young' by Wilfred Owen

* * *

Naruto knocked on Tsunade's door, ignoring the two ANBU on either side of him, their eyes burning through their masks as if they knew.

"Come in," her voice, welcoming him. He cracked open the door and slid through, jerking as he found her standing right there, her mouth twisted into a sad smile. "Oh, _Naruto_…" her voice broke as she stretched out her arms and he went willingly into her embrace, resting his head on her shoulder, the shoulder that had steadied him these long seven years, breathing in her familiar scent of antiseptic and ink. His older sister.

"Obaa-chan," he breathed, feeling her arms tighten around his waist. "I sent Gamakichi for the scroll." He felt her nod. "Come sit down," she said, releasing him and going back to her desk. He followed, taking the mug of green tea she shoved into his hands.

"So the Kyuubi has received all of its chakra back?"

"Yes. It-" he paused, took a sip of tea, "summoned the demons." She let her head fall into her hands, a sigh escaping. "It did? Great."

"I'm sorry." He was, really. _'Sorry I couldn't do more, sorry I was so weak, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-'_

"Don't _ever_ say that!" He looked up, shrinking back into his chair. Tsunade towered over him, her green eyes almost aflame with fury. "Don't ever say you're sorry! You did the best you could, the best _anyone_ could ever do. Nothing is your fault, nothing. And even if the world does end, even if it does, you gave us seven more years of life, and that is something you should never apologize for. Even though…" she looked out the window, and then back at him, her face pale with agony and voice hoarse,

"Even though I would have sacrificed those seven years to keep you from pain." Naruto felt his lips twitch into a helpless, sick smile. Tsunade fell back into her chair, and suddenly she didn't look like the Hokage anymore, not like a leader or a healer or a shinobi at all, but only a woman who would rather be struck deaf than hear what Naruto had to say next.

But because he loved her, and he loved Konaha, he had to say it anyway. Hating himself, with his fingers digging into the bright porcelain of the mug, he told her the plan.

* * *

Tsunade looked away and let her fingers curl around the photograph on her desk of Naruto, smiling, a beautiful smile, bright and sunny.

A false smile.

"Are you sure?" She didn't look up, couldn't, because to look at Naruto, this brave, noble, good man, who bore the pain and the burden of an entire world and asked for no surcease of sorrow, who loved desperately and simply and joyfully-

To look at this good, kind man, who had never been given a chance, not really. Not in the way that the rest of them were. _' I guess… you've always known, haven't you?'_ The picture frame cracked in her hands.

"Give me another way, _please_?" Her voice was disgustingly weak in the silence. Warm hands settled on her shoulders and pulled her to her feet, and she buried her face in Naruto's hair and wept like a child, while Naruto hummed a lullaby, this martyr for the world, and said in a voice that sounded so much like Dan's,

"There is none."

* * *

Tsunade gazed at her hands, tracing the wrinkles she knew were there under the thin cover of a jutsu. A sad affectation, as if by their invisibility, she was still young.

"Shizune?" Her lover laid a hand upon her shoulder, squeezing in a vain attempt to comfort. Tsunade's eyes flickered to the report on white paper in front of her, black words stark: 'The seal has broken.' She felt as though she should be crying. She wasn't, couldn't, and not for the first time she cursed Naruto, cursed his idealism and his love and his unfailing loyalty to the village that scorned him. Cursed him for making her believe that she could ever have been Hokage, making her forget that to be Hokage was to become the stone face on the mountain, emotionless.

"Are they here?" Her voice rang hollow.

"Yes. All of the former Rookie Nine, plus Gai's former team." A breath hissed out between her teeth as she closed her eyes. _'They are our hope. The greatest generation. The greatest we have ever produced, the beacons for our future. They are everything we could ever have hoped to produce, and they have slain the earth.' _There was a terrible pain behind her eyes. She opened them, pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, and then composed herself, straightening.

"Send them in, please." The hand left, and Shizune walked to the door and opened it, gesturing. The eleven filed in, pale and stoic, the gap in their midst as wide and deep as the seas.

She let her gaze wander over each of them, stopping to stare into Sakura's wide eyes. Her apprentice flushed, but she didn't look away. Perversely proud, Tsunade turned to Sasuke, traitor who now served their village, his steady black eyes- Uchiha to the last drop of blood in his veins- old and ancient. Ino Yamanaka broke the silence.

"Hokage-sama, why am I here? I didn't have anything to do with this."

"You didn't? Why not?" Ino looked away, biting her lip. She took a deep breath and blurted, "Because Naruto's a demon and he deserved every bit of what he got!" Tsunade felt the blood drain from her face as the world blurred before her.

"_Excuse_ me?" Her voice was soft, the blood throbbing in her ears. Her hands curled into fists. Ino faltered, but persevered, "He killed my uncle and grandfather."

"Get out," she snarled.

"But-"

"_Get out!_"

Ino fled, the door slamming behind her. Tsunade sighed, looked up, and said,

"What do you have to say for yourselves? No-" her words were clipped and sharp as knives, "what the _hell_ were you thinking? What in the world were you trying to do?!" They glanced at each other, shuffled, but said nothing. "_ Well?!_"

"We just wanted to help," Shikamaru spoke up. She rose slowly, the Hokage robes billowing behind her, fury boiling up inside her.

"Help? _Help_? You haven't helped one bit, you measly lackwits, you've done the absolute worse thing you can do: you have made those long seven years he suffered in the dark _worthless!_" They flinched with each word she said, and distantly she recognized tears trailing down Hinata's bloodless face. "You have made his dream worthless, his pain and his sacrifice and his love worth no more than your own souls. You never paid any attention to him when he was young, did you, when he was crying out for someone, anyone, to love him, to speak to him just _once_, so he'd know he was alive.

He had nothing, don't you see? He had no one, and he still cared; he didn't abandon Konoha, even though all this village did was flay him to pieces with words and stones. And now you want to make up for it, to reassure yourselves that you're good people, that you're _worthy_ of his love. My _god_, did you think that it was easy for me to stand by and watch him be hurt, knowing that it was for the better good of a people who had scorned him, who will never know of his sacrifice? No, it hurt me every day, that I was the one who consigned him to that hell, but I supported him! I cared for him, while you, all of you, in your arrogance, defiled his sacrifice and condemned him, trying to be as noble as him. If this was a _contest_ for you, then who was the better friend?" Sasuke flinched. She took a deep breath, struggling for control, to not snap and batter them into the ground.

"You, Uchiha. You don't know the tiniest _inkling_ of what he suffered; you didn't have to stand by his bedside every morning and watch him struggle for breath with lungs shredded into blue pieces of wool; you didn't have to pick him up when all of his bones were shattered and drain yourself dry to keep him steady and sane, even though everything you could do could only hurt and prolong his pain; you didn't have to hold his hand and watch his flayed face try and smile for you, no matter how much it hurt! You-" breath shuddered in her lungs, and finally she just picked up the thick folder full of lurid photographs and flung it at them, watching with grim satisfaction as their faces turned green.

"Do you understand what will happen now?" Her voice was soft. Mutely they shook their heads. She sneered. "The demons will break free, destroying their containers, and they will come. Akatsuki will come, but what they don't know is that it doesn't matter, because-" her fingers curled around the edge of the desk, "the demons are going to end the world." She laughed bitterly.

"Of course, Naruto found a way out." Their heads jerked up, hope gleaming in their eyes. "When the demons and Akatsuki are here, he's going to use a new jutsu, one stolen from Akatsuki's lair. He will take the form of Kyuubi, take all the demon's chakra, and destroy the demons and every member of Akatsuki, yes, even Itachi." She smirked. _'How does that feel, Uchiha, to have your vengeance taken by someone you called 'weakling?''_

"But what you don't know," she said slowly, savoring the dimming light in their eyes, "is that this jutsu will almost certainly kill him."

"No!" Sakura gasped. "That's not true! He- he can't have gone through all this to… to go like that!" Tsunade felt her lips peel back in a predatory smile.

"There is a ninety-eight percent chance of his death. And if he dies," she was sure that she should have felt bad for crushing their hope, "it will be _all your fault _."

Sasuke strode forward and slammed his fists onto the desk, sending papers and ink everywhere. The charcoal liquid splattered on his face in a poor imitation of the cursed seal.

"That's not going to happen!" he snarled in her face, a blast of wet breath and the cold cereal he had had for breakfast hitting her in the face. "I won't let it. We'll fight Akatsuki and the demons ourselves, he's already suffered enough. He doesn't need to fight them." The other shinobi, pale and almost trembling, nodded behind him.

Tsunade deliberately wiped the saliva off her cheek. "We have no choice. Maybe you could stop Akatsuki, maybe you could take your vengeance, but there is no one on this earth that can stop the demons. You've all seen what the Shukaku, the weakest demon, can do - what it does to its victims. What do you think eight demons, driven mad by the fox's call, will do to the Hidden Villages?" Sasuke's fingers dug into the desk, making the dark cherry-wood splinter, but he finally acquiesced and stepped back, fury etched into his face.

"The other Hidden Villages, what's going to happen to them?" She looked at Shikamaru with a grudging respect. _'Smart boy.' _"Five of them are going to be destroyed when the demons break free of their containers. Kiri, Oto, Taki, Iwa, and Kaminari are all going to be destroyed, due to the demons' fury at how their hosts were treated." Kiba was becoming rapidly paler by the second as the full weight of the deaths they were going to cause descended upon him.

"I will not punish you," she said softly, sinking down into her chair, "as any punishment I could devise would be paltry and useless compared to the punishment of your own consciences. Now get out of my sight."

"C-can't we see Naruto?" Hinata said, trembling. "If Kakashi and Gaara would let you, I suppose you could. But I highly doubt they will." She made a show of inspecting her fingernails, listening to the soft shuffling of their feet as they left her office, beaten and broken.

They deserved no less, she thought viciously. "Shizune, can you tell Naruto to come and see me whenever he has the chance?" Unbidden, her hand strayed to the order on her desk, awaiting her signature. She dipped her pen in the ink and slashed her name across it, sitting back and regarding the paper smugly when she was finished.

The order for Naruto to become Rokudaime Hokage.

* * *

"Kakashi, Gaara, can I talk to you?" Kakashi looked up from his book, his free hand absentmindedly petting Gaara's hair, to see Naruto, his face gaunt, in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe.

"Sure." He jostled Gaara, who stirred, sand flowing to tug the loveseat in the couch over to where Naruto stood. Naruto sank into the seat with a smile of thanks, settling into it with a soft hiss as the newly grown skin on his back rubbed against the coarse fabric.

"I talked to Tsunade," he said without preamble. "I think she chewed out the others after I left-" a flickering smile, all too precious in these dark times, "I could hear her yelling from all the way down the street!"

"She _is_ Tsunade," Kakashi said wryly. "Yeah," Naruto said, grinning, "that's the Old Hag for you." Gaara turned his head from where he lay on Kakashi's thigh to stare in puzzlement at Naruto.

"You call your Hokage an Old Hag? That is allowed here?"

"Oh, no," Kakashi assured him, "it's just Naruto that does that. He usually gets beat about the head for saying it, though." Gaara made a noncommittal noise, satisfied that the world had once fallen back into its proper alignment, with everything neatly organized.

"I do kind of have something important to say," Naruto said, fingers twisting nervously around each other.

"Once, when I was little, Sandaime told me I was a hero." Naruto looked down at his hands, his face pale and breath rattling in his lungs. "I didn't know what he meant, but I can say now that I know."

"You mean the Kyuubi?" Naruto looked up at him, and tears shone in his eyes. "No, Kakashi. I wish that was it." Motes of dust swirled in the sunlight pouring in through the windows, illuminating the room as if Kakashi had returned to the warm house of his childhood. As if all of life could be contained in the illusory speck of dust in a sunbeam.

Naruto leaned back in his chair and coughed, the sound rattling dryly from somewhere deep down inside, as if there was a thin, sharp-edged man inside struggling to escape. He wiped at his mouth and continued tonelessly, "I stopped reading fairytales with heroes in them when I was really young, because I hated the endings. You know what always happens at the end of every hero's story?"

"They live happily ever after?"

Naruto smiled, and it was bitter, so bitter, hard and grim and sad as the desert itself.

"They die." Kakashi's stomach felt like it was crumpling in on itself like a ball of paper in the hand of a frustrated artist.

"You will not die," Gaara said, his voice so certain that it seemed as if the words were etched in the very rock of the Hokage mountain. "I won't let you." One side of Naruto's mouth lifted in a tired, spare grin.

"Well, I've got a two-percent chance, you know, of living. I guess I've faced worse odds before."

"Yes," Gaara said, "When you fought me, I calculated the odds of your survival at zero."

"Yeah," Naruto trailed off, looking tired and sad and anticipatory all at once, "I've beaten the odds before. I can do it again." Kakashi rose from his seat and tucked his book away, crossing over to take a seat beside Naruto and sliding an arm around his frail shoulders. He was silent, suppressing all his urges to question, to pick apart the problem and search for other options, because he could see in Naruto's ancient, pained eyes that there were none, that to question would only cause further pain, pain that Naruto, as always, would forgive.

"I can do it again," Naruto repeated, trying, it seemed, to convince himself, before he folded into a fetal position, heedless of the pain of his freshly healed bones, a child too young to be a martyr.

Gaara joined him, sitting on Naruto's other side. Carefully, as if he would break, they enfolded him between them, their eyes meeting over his bowed head as he shuddered against them, cracking sobs trembling against their sides, his thin fingers clutching them to him as if he was afraid they would leave. The hiccupping sobs trailed off, only to replaced by a high, wavering keening that made the hair on his arms stand up and set his teeth on edge, the keening of a wounded animal who could see no way out of the trap it was caught in, the regretful cries of a man who had fought for seven years to save his world, but finally, at the end, there were thousands of people he could not protect, despite his suffering.

'_Never,'_ Kakashi swore silently, seeing the same conviction mirrored in Gaara's eyes, '_will I leave you to suffer alone like I did for those twenty years. If your name shall be written on the monument, it shall be with mine beside it.'_


	14. Chapter 14

_The warmth of your embrace_

_Melts my frostbitten spirit_

_You speak the truth and I hear it_

_The words are I love you_

_And I have to believe in you_

- 'Red Sam' by Flyleaf

* * *

"Naruto," Tsunade said, smiling at him as he shuffled over to sit in the armchair, "I've got something for you." Her little brother- family by heart, if not by blood- tilted his head, and Tsunade felt tears burn behind her eyelids at how terribly thin he was, his arms looking as fragile as the bones of a bird's wing, how sad and quiet his struggle was to live.

"You do? Is it ramen?"

Tsunade rolled her eyes at Shizune, watching as her assistant hid her grin behind her hand. "No, brat, it's not ramen. You're so one-dimensional sometimes, you know?" She struggled for levity, for something, anything, to forget the looming shadow above them all. Floundering, without words to speak-

"Tsunade?"

She blinked, broken from her reverie. "Oh, yeah. Thanks, Shizune."

Shizune grinned impishly, "Okay, Naruto, close your eyes." His brow wrinkled as he crossed his arms over his chest, glancing from one to the other.

"No funny business?"

"No funny business," Tsunade promised, motioning for Shizune to get the Hokage hat and robes from the closet behind her desk. She got up and crossed the room, taking the pyramidal hat from Shizune and settling it on Naruto's head before swirling the robe around him and buttoning up the front. Naruto tensed under her fingers, fine tremors skittering up and down his limbs, and she was reminded all over again of just how damaged he was, damage that even she, perhaps the greatest medical shinobi in the world, couldn't heal.

Shizune handed her the mirror, and she placed it in Naruto's hand, brushing the palm of her hand across his spiky blond hair that stuck out around the hat, feeling the soft texture slide across her skin. There was a lump in her throat, and she swallowed, her lungs suddenly unable to move, confronted with this vision from the past, as if the painful twenty years had only been a dream, and Yondaime was here again, drowsing in the midday sunlight.

"Open your eyes," she said softly. The vision shattered. Naruto's eyelids flickered, and he opened his eyes, staring into the mirror. He swallowed, tried to speak, couldn't.

"Tsunade-" the word hissed out in the barest of breaths, questioning. She knelt before him, her hands on his, staring into his blue, blue eyes.

"This decision," she whispered, "is not one that I made lightly. I have many years left in me, but I'm tired, Naruto. I'm tired of ruling this village and trying to love everyone here, of trying to see the worth in every human being. I simply can't do it."

"But you can. You possess the most wonderful soul I have ever seen, the largest heart, the endless capacity for forgiveness that no Hokage has had, but each one has needed. You can look at the friends I can't forgive, and still remember your love for them. You can look at the demon sealed inside you, and forgive him his trespasses. I've watched you, these seven years, and you know what they made me realize?" Naruto tried to speak, but she held up a hand, forestalling him,

"I was, and still am, weak. I cared so much for you, for the worth and the life of one person, that I would have butchered the world to keep you from pain. I would have sacrificed those years to keep you from pain, I would have borne the sorrow for you, I would have died in battle against that fox, all for you."

"But you," she smiled, wiped away a tear, "you are my hope. You are Sandaime's legacy, Yondaime's legacy, my legacy. You are Konoha, because you love this village enough to bear the worst pain anyone can suffer for it, for these people who have made your life a living hell."

"And _that_ is what makes you the living embodiment of a Hokage." Naruto almost looked like he was choking on the air. Tsunade squeezed his hands, stood, and took the mirror, placing it back on her desk before turning back to him and offering a hand.

"Rise, Rokudaime Hokage." Naruto looked at her hand, then at her. His mouth opened and closed, and finally he took her hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet.

"I-" he broke off, trying to gather his thoughts, "I don't know how to thank you." Tsunade embraced him, closing her eyes and trying to memorize the feel of him in her arms. She might never get the chance again.

"Live," she said simply.

* * *

Kakashi looked down at the note, written in Naruto's chicken-scratch scrawl. 'The demons are starting to break free. Come,_'_ a pause, as if he had been unsure of what to write, and then, in tiny, pained letters, 'please?' He rose from his seat on the porch swing and went inside to find Gaara.

He found him hunched on the end of the couch, staring at his open hands, sand stirring in restless tendrils in the air, forming arcane symbols without meaning.

"I can feel them," Gaara said in answer to the unasked question. He laughed, a dry, hoarse sound. "It never really left me then. I can feel Shukaku." He breathed out a long sigh, looking at once tired and relieved.

"Naruto wants us," Kakashi said. Gaara looked up, and one side of his mouth quirked upward. "I want to be there." Kakashi offered Gaara a hand up, and then closed his eyes as sand surrounded them both.

They came back to themselves in front of the Hokage's offices. The ANBU flinched, exchanging wary glances as they saw Gaara. The former vessel didn't flinch, but walked past them without stopping. It made sense, Kakashi reflected, that he could ignore it. That he had seen that half-ashamed glance of fear and hate so many times that it had ceased to scar outwardly.

He followed Gaara down the hallway to the room where the sound of noise and terror overrode everything else, and entered into chaos.

Shinobi of all ranks rushed back and forth under Tsunade's heavy gaze, radios blaring static from every corner. Papers swirled in the dim yellow light of the sunset, everyone struggling for attention, to be the loudest, to understand, to avert this crisis that came on with the implacability of a glacier.

"-evacuation of Kaminari has failed!"

"Iwa's started to crumble-"

In the center of it all, they found Naruto, swimming in the blankets Shizune had covered him with, fidgeting, blue eyes flickering over the room like a stone skipped across a pond.

When he saw them, he- even here, at the end of all things, with the deaths of a million people on the horizon- he smiled, stood up, and came to them, a mirage of normality in the midst of insanity.

"Gaara, did you eat? There was some oatmeal left over in the refrigerator if you wanted it. Oh, Kakashi, I forgot to ask if the book on the living room table was yours. I accidentally spilled some coffee on it." Kakashi felt the telltale burn behind his eyes once more; he had felt that more in the last month than he had in all the years previous.

Even here, Naruto sought to care for the ones he loved, to take solace in the mundane, to forget, if only for a moment, the looming specter above them all. Naruto went back to his couch in the corner, pulling them with him, and pushed them onto the couch.

"If we have to listen to bad news for the next hour, we can at least be comfortable while we do it." His smile trembled. "Naruto," Kakashi said gently, "You don't have to be brave for us." Gaara nodded in agreement, stole a part of the blanket wrapped around Naruto's shoulders, and wedged himself in between Naruto and the edge of the couch, taking Naruto's hand in both of his own.

"You have been brave all your life. You can stop, if only for a little while." Naruto shuddered, a bone-deep quake, and leaned against them both, his eyes closing, as in the midst of screaming and planning and frantic curses rushing to and fro, he found a sort of terrible peace, tears seeping out from beneath his closed eyelids.

As the first report droned in over the radio, the voice terribly flat over the roar of flames and the screaming of dying men in the background, the room fell absolutely silent. '_ Silent as the grave,_' Kakashi thought.

"Gobi has escaped. Iwa has fallen. Approximately thirty-thousand casualties." Naruto's breath hitched, his hand tightening on Kakashi's, his other white-knuckled around Gaara's. Kakashi bore the creaking of his bones without a flinch, listening with half an ear to the droning reports coming in over the radio.

"Rokubi is out. Kiri has fallen."

"Hachibi is out. Oto has fallen. Approximately ten-thousand casualties." A ragged cheer went up at the thought of Orochimaru's death, consumed from within by the demon that had given him such power. Sasuke would have wanted to hear that, Kakashi thought dimly.

"Shichibi is out. Kaminari has fallen, casualties approximately twenty-thousand." Naruto's closed eyelids flickered, and Kakashi wondered what he saw, if he sensed the containers dying in blood and screams, if he saw their lives flickering and dying as if extinguished by some dark wing-

"The lamps are going out," Naruto said in anguish, "All over the land, and they will not be lit again in our lifetime."

* * *

Naruto leaned on the edge of Tsunade's desk, studying the map of the continent. Gaara peered over his shoulder.

"I think Shukaku's on the border of the desert right now," he pointed at a dry lake bed. Gaara shook his head. "No. It would never go near anything involving water unless it had to." He felt Gaara's frail frame lean against him in tired resignation, at the knowledge that he knew where Shukaku was, that he still had a link, however tenuous, to the terrible thing that had brought such pain into his life.

"It's there," Gaara said, stealing a sip of Naruto's coffee. He took the pencil and slashed an 'X' across an flat swath of desert. "The Empty Quarter." His lips twisted in a sneer. "It was its favorite place."

"Okay," Naruto propped his chin on a fist and waved Kakashi over, "so if it's there, and it moves about-"

"Sixty miles per hour at top speed," Gaara interjected.

"Then it should reach Konoha in two days," Kakashi said, taking the pencil and drawing a sweeping arc, placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder. Naruto tilted his head back and grinned at him, hooking an arm around Gaara's waist, staring at this wonderful man who had done so much for him, who had held him and forced him awake when he wanted nothing more than to sleep, who had lain on the couch with him and Gaara in the mornings, watching terrible movies and stuffing their faces with cereal-

Who he loved. He leaned back and pushed his hair off his forehead, sighing. "So, if they all travel at top speed, they should reach here in two days." His throat felt dry, his tongue thick and swollen in his mouth. His stomach twisted within him like a snake writhing upon the fangs of a mountain cat. Kakashi felt his fear, knew it- he always did- and squeezed his shoulder in a silent attempt to comfort.

"We work well together, don't we?" He stared, sightless, at the map, listening to his words hang in the air like a leaf on the wind, a mask for something much greater. Gaara- still smaller than him, still fragile- sighed, and he looked over to see the former vessel's quicksilver smile flash in the gloom, more valuable than gold.

"Yes. We do."

Warmth bubbled up in the bottom of his belly like the best ramen in the universe, like learning a new jutsu or pulling off a successful gamble. Kakashi's hand settled heavily on his head, carding through his hair.

"Yes." The voice was wondering, testing, "We really do work well together, don't we?"

And that was all that could be said.

* * *

Tsunade looked out over the three hundred people crammed into the meeting hall in front of her, the youngest genin sulking under the watchful eyes of their jounin sensei, while all the other ranks sat on the long benches. The ANBU stood, dark, watchful shadows, in the back. She could feel Sasuke's Sharingan-red gaze boring into her from within their ranks. The Hunters thronged in a circle around her on the stage. She looked down, shuffled her notes, and began.

"Recently it came to my attention that a member of our ANBU corps sacrificed himself for Konoha." A ripple went through the room, most of the assembled shinobi appearing confused. They would have known of the death of an ANBU, and there had not been any for a long time. Tsunade spared a smile for their confusion, and continued,

"He sacrificed himself for seven years to protect Konoha, alone in his struggle. But more than that, he did this to protect the entire world. He stood alone between the human race and our extinction. For two thousand, five hundred and fifty-five nights, he faced death and the worst kind of pain a person can know, to save a benighted world and a people who would never know of the man who held our species in his hands.

But I did not decide to step down and give my position to him for this reason alone." She held up a hand to forestall the mounting commotion, "If the Hokage position went to anyone who saved the world, then we would have had twenty or more Hokages by now.

I chose him for a special reason, something that no other has demonstrated as fully. We are all shinobi, tools of death. To be a shinobi is to be in love with death. And as people who walk with death, forgiveness is not in our nature. Most would say that forgiveness is a weakness, instead.

But he has a capacity to forgive that makes him remarkable. He forgave Haruno Sakura for hurting him with years of neglect and contempt; He forgave Uchiha Sasuke for attempting to kill him; he forgave his father for consigning him to a life of torment; he forgave this entire nation for destroying him so fully that he felt that he deserved every blow." Her voice was a whisper,

"He forgave this world." The older shinobi were all staring at her in shock, in terror, as if absolutely unable to comprehend what she was saying. "And it is because of that capacity to forgive, something we lack as a species, that I chose him to be my successor. It is because that he voluntarily bore the weight of our sins and our hatred, that I chose him. It is because he loves this village and this people so much that he sacrificed himself two thousand, five hundred and fifty-five times, that I chose him. It is because he will do it again." She smirked. "May I present to you your Rokudaime Hokage, son of Yondaime, leader of ANBU Squad Eleven:

Uzumaki Naruto."

* * *

Sasuke felt as if he had been punched in the gut. The world swam before his eyes. '_ What?_' The room was so quiet that the sound of Naruto's quiet steps on the stage as he made his lonely way to the podium sounded like the rolling of thunder in the distance. Naruto wasn't even dressed in the Hokage robes, but in his ANBU uniform. His eyes were unimaginably old and sad. Grieving, when he should have been screaming for joy, now that he had achieved his dream.

"Uh, hi." He tried to grin, succeeded halfway. "I'm sure all of you are wondering just what sacrifice Tsunade was referring to, and I suppose I'll have to tell you." Sasuke closed his eyes. _ 'Don't say it. Please, please_-,' his throat felt swollen shut, '-_ don't say it, dobe, just don't say it.'_

"Basically the Kyuubi's been raping me for the past seven years," Naruto said flatly. "I got him to sign a contract where I got all of his chakra in return for me. I needed his chakra, because he was going to use it to summon the other eight demons and end the world with them.

Due to… unforeseen circumstances," his steady gaze flickered, "the contract was broken. He summoned the eight demons and they'll be here the day after tomorrow. But I've got a plan, so don't start writing your wills just yet.

I sent a summon to steal a scroll from Akatsuki's hideout. Without going into all sorts of technical jargon, the scroll will allow me to take the form of Kyuubi, steal all of his chakra, and use it to destroy Akatsuki and the demons." His shoulders slumped as he smiled, exhausted.

"The chances of my survival are two percent." Distantly, Sasuke could hear Hinata's sobs jerk upward in volume. "But the reason I needed everyone here was to tell you what to do in case the jutsu fails. I'll be able to destroy the demons either way, but there is a slight chance that if I live, the Kyuubi will take me over." His voice was calm,

"If that happens, I'll need all of you to gang up and kill me." There was a short, abortive cry of protest- Lee. " But if you all do need to do that, the chances are that some of you, maybe most of you, will die. So I've only got one official order for you as the Hokage.

Go home. Eat your favorite food. Get drunk. Go party. Watch your favorite show. Tell someone you love them. Make love to your precious person. It might be the last chance you get." Sasuke glanced at Kakashi and Gaara. His former teacher's arms were folded on Gaara's chest, holding him against Kakashi's chest. Gaara's hand rested on Kakashi's arms.

Their faces were totally blank. Accepting. It was terrifying.

"So yeah," Naruto smiled crookedly, "the Hokage's just pretty much given you permission to go out and get totally plastered for the next forty-eight hours. Enjoy it, you probably won't ever see this happen again!" Sasuke blinked, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand, forcing away tears as he saw the last shard of Naruto gleam through the tattered, condemned shell that was now his best friend's body.

The gleaming shard flickered, wavered, and went out.

* * *

'_The lamps are going out all over the land, and they will not be lit again in our lifetime.'_ – An allusion to a remark made by Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary at the beginning of World War One.

'_A leaf on the wind.'_ – An allusion to a famous line from Joss Whedon's movie Serenity and television series Firefly.


	15. Chapter 15

This chapter has been edited to comply with Terms of Service. The link to the full version of this chapter can be found in my profile.

* * *

_ My hands float up above me_

_And you whisper you love me_

_And I begin to fade _

_Into our secret place_

- 'All Around Me' by Flyleaf

* * *

Naruto rested his head on the cool wood of the door to his room, trying not to remember the betrayed faces of his friends as he avoided them on what might be his last day. He wanted to be alone to think and remember the world. His fingers curled into loose fists gripping his hair, as he closed his eyes and felt his breath hissing through his throat. 

How many minutes did he have left to breathe?

How many hours did he have left to feel his blood throb through his veins?

He felt Kakashi's hand land on his shoulder, and he turned and fell into his embrace, burying his face into Kakashi's chest and hearing the warm drumbeat of his heart, filling his head with the scent of sandalwood and smoke and the bitter metallic stench of fear. Kakashi's hand tangled in his hair, stroking, gentling. Naruto rested there for a moment, and simply breathed.

How had he not realized how precious a gift breath was?

Kakashi's hand slipped from his hair to wind around his shoulders, and he rocked them back and forth, humming something, something that seemed ancient and otherworldly and terribly, terribly sad.

"Are you okay?" Naruto rubbed his cheek against the softness of Kakashi's shirt, feeling the warmth and coiled steel of the muscles beneath, before answering.

"No." He sighed, wanting to hide in Kakashi's strength. "I'm not." Kakashi rested his chin on top of his head, his arms tightening.

"I used to think," Kakashi said without warning, "that after Obito and Rin died that I could never love again. I thought that they had taken me with them to the world of spirits, and that all that was left of me was a body bound by duty.

Then Yondaime died, and I believed that it should have been me. I thought that I had given all my love to him and Obito and Rin, and that when they died, I could never get it back." A hoarse laugh, warm like brandy and sunlight in spring.

"That was fucking stupid of me." His grip tightened suddenly, pulling Naruto closer to him, hips and torsos melding together, and Naruto closed his eyes and tried to etch this memory into his brain, a drop of warmth to take with him forever.

"And then I met you and Gaara, and I realized that I could still love." His voice cracked, and Naruto felt tears burn, for this proud, noble man who had loved so deeply, for the man who had taught him to stand up.

"I could still break, and hurt, and die, but you know what?" His breath shuddered out and trembled like a leaf in a storm, "I've decided that it's worth it. All of the pain and hurt that love brings," Naruto tilted his head back and saw Kakashi's unmasked lips twitch into a heartrending smile, his eyes glossy with some emotion he couldn't name,

"It's really all worth it." And then he was cupping Naruto's face in his hands, bending close, and Naruto closed his eyes as warm lips settled onto his.

It was a different kiss than Gaara's, slow and tired, lacking the animalistic undertone that always prowled in the back of Gaara's every movement, the restless bloody fury. But somehow it was comforting all the same, tasting of the deep currents of the sea. It was different than he had expected, but no less beautiful and somehow sad, that he was only kissed on the night before his death.

Kakashi's tongue slipped inside with the agility of a serpent, and Naruto felt a clenched noise escape him, hands fisting in Kakashi's shirt. Sparks danced across the inside of his eyelids, warmth uncoiling, like a dragon woken from sleep, in his belly- not Kyuubi, he refused to think of that- Kakashi's tongue tangled with his, and he responded, clumsy, unsure, feeling the warmth of Kakashi's hands splay across his back, mapping the tracery of old, old scars.

Kakashi's lips left, whispered across his trembling eyelids in a gesture of trust, and slid away like raindrops on glass. He felt Kakashi lean his forehead against his own, and opened his eyes.

Slowly whirling red and the gray mist of the fog over the Nakano River pinned him in place, caught in the web of slow-burning need that Kakashi was deftly building around them.

"You're beautiful," Kakashi said. Naruto smiled, catching Kakashi's hand in his, feeling the uncallused- strange, for a shinobi- palm between his own. Kakashi was handsome, and Naruto almost snickered as he remembered what Kakashi had told them about his reason for wearing the mask.

"'If I took it off, everyone would fall in love with me,'" he quoted, grinning. Kakashi returned the smile, a simple communion of hearts in the face of the oncoming darkness. "It's true, and here I was thinking you were just being arrogant." Somehow he felt that he had returned to the person he had been before this pain had started, that the specter of death made him force away the pain inside him and brought the warmth of laughter back. _'How weird.'_

"No one ever called me modest," Kakashi shrugged. The sound of soft footsteps on the hallway floor broke the spell, making them both look over to where Gaara stood, arms crossed in his customary pose, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Am I interrupting you two? Shall I leave?"

"No!" They both spoke at once, and exchanged sheepish grins before separating. Gaara came closer, skittish, but allowed himself to be pulled closer. Naruto leaned towards him, whispered, "I came up with an answer for you." Gaara glanced up, hope- something so strange to see in Gaara's old-man eyes- shining in the dimness.

"You have?" Naruto sobered, and said simply,

"I love you, too. Just like I love Kakashi." Gaara's gaze flickered from him to Kakashi, and back again, stopping only when Kakashi nodded, smiling gently.

"I'm glad," Gaara said softly, stretching up and kissing Naruto again. The taste of the wild filled Naruto's mouth, and for a moment he felt totally drunk on it, on Kakashi's solid form against his back, hands resting on his hips. The two men he loved shared his feelings, even here, at the end of all things.

Gaara broke away, leaning his head against Naruto's chest, hands resting on top of Kakashi's, fingers stroking idly. Naruto leaned his head back against Kakashi's shoulder, closed his eyes. _'I want to stay here forever.'_

But he couldn't. He had one night. One night to make everything worth it. "Kakashi?" He felt his old sensei's voice rumble deep in his chest, gloried in the feeling.

"Yes?" He swallowed, steeled himself.

"Will you-" but the words stuck in his throat, and he couldn't give voice to them, as a final sign of how the Kyuubi's taint was still there like a dark raven hanging over them. But Kakashi understood.

"Yes, Naruto-" his voice broke, fingers tightening on his hips, chest trembling against Naruto's spine, "Yes, I will. But only if you want it."

Gaara tilted his head upward, pinning him in place as he stared into pools of green. Gaara wouldn't be left out, and somehow that was right. He felt the fox move restlessly inside him, grinned. To be able to make love with them, to forget the Kyuubi's terrible agonies inflicted upon him for seven long, long years-

That would allow him to escape the Kyuubi's intangible shackles forever.

That would allow him to go in peace.

"Yes. I'm sure."

* * *

Kakashi let his head drop, buried his nose in Naruto's hair as he tried to control himself, tried so desperately not to break down, because he understood just what Naruto was giving them, the last piece of himself, something to remember him by.

'_This is nothing like what happens in Icha Icha,'_ Kakashi reminded himself. _'Sex can't solve the pain of what's been taken from him. Sex can't erase a rape. There's no dashing hero to save the day. Just you and Gaara, to make his last night worth it.'_

* * *

As the sweat cooled on their bodies, Kakashi pulled the covers up over them all, sinking down into the mattress and letting his head fall into the pillow. Gaara wedged himself up against his side, one arm flung across his chest. Kakashi glanced over at him, watched the pale eyes flicker up to meet his gaze. They shared weary, heartfelt smiles. He reached for Gaara's hand, pressed an openmouthed kiss in the center of it. Gaara smiled, closed his blackened eyelids, and sighed, a long and vaguely canine sound, almost as if he was acknowledging that he was safe and loved. 

There was a sort of honor in that, he thought, that Gaara trusted them both enough to sleep in their presence. That he trusted them to keep him safe. He turned his attention to Naruto, who lay on his other side, his eyes wide in the darkness. He sighed internally and lifted an arm. Naruto's quicksilver smile flashed in the gloom as he scooted across the mattress, molding himself to Kakashi's side. He laid his arm back down across Naruto's shoulders, pulling him close.

"Thank you," Naruto whispered. Kakashi brushed Naruto's hair off his forehead, stroked a thumb across his bottom lip as he replied,

"You're welcome."

When Kakashi woke in the middle of the night, he was at first unsure as to why he had done so. A few stifled sobs came to his ears, and he turned from Gaara to pull Naruto against his chest as he had done only scant hours ago. Each hour that passed was an hour with Naruto that he might never have again.

Naruto's frail shoulders trembled against him, and he felt cold, so cold, even with Gaara's desert warmth against his back. Bitter tears stung in his heart, reopened long-sealed wounds. Naruto spoke, his voice soft, childlike,

"I'm afraid."

"I know."

"I don't want to die."

"I know."


	16. Chapter 16

_But in this heart of darkness  
Our hope lies lost and torn;  
All flame like love is fleeting  
When there's no hope anymore_

- 'Hope' by Apocalyptica

* * *

Kakashi woke as he felt Naruto's slight weight leave the bed, the door clicking shut behind him. He looked behind him and saw Gaara's eyes gleam in the darkness before the dawn.

Voices seeped through the door as he listened, rolling out of the bed and pulling on a pair of sweatpants. Gaara followed him, padding across the carpet to pull on his clothing.

Kakashi opened the door, immediately identifying the two ANBU who stood in the hallway. Neji and Sasuke glanced at him and Gaara, then looked back at Naruto, who leaned against the wall, his face expressionless. Kakashi crossed to Naruto and slung an arm around his shoulders, unwilling to leave him alone in the presence of two of his betrayers. Neji coughed and continued,

"The first reports have been coming in. The demons have been spotted on the outskirts of the woods; unfortunately, we lost Kizuko to Hachibi. The Nekomata apparently has an army of corpses with it-"

"Her," Gaara interrupted from the doorway, sand settling on his skin and beginning to harden into the beginnings of armor. Sasuke stared at him, his fingers clenching into the beginnings of a fist. Gaara sneered.

"Her. Yonbi's poisons are, as far as we can tell, incurable; all the animals caught in its path have died within minutes." Neji reached up and removed his mask; wearied white eyes stared at them both. "Your orders-" a long pause, as if he was struggling with what to say-

"Hokage?" Naruto closed his eyes and sighed, leaning into Kakashi's side for a moment, before he straightened.

"Move the children and all civilians into the cave system beneath the Hokage Mountain. Send the genin and their jounin-sensei to guard the cave entrance; Gaara, would you mind blocking the entrance and emergency exits with your sand until-" he swallowed, throat bobbing, "-until this is all over?"

"Done," Gaara said immediately. Naruto gave him a quick grin. "Thanks. Send out Hunter detachments to rescue as many of the surrounding towns as possible. I don't think many of them are still alive, so your best bets are Arata and Hokkai. The detachments must be back inside the gates before five-thirty, since that's when we'll close them.

Tell all the chuunin and jounin to be on the walls before five-thirty. Gaara and Kakashi will be with me, and-" he took a deep breath, "I want the former Rookie Nine and Team Gai guarding the main gates with me." Sasuke stiffened; Naruto didn't notice.

"That's all." He nodded, once more. "That's all." Neji bowed jerkily and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Sasuke removed his mask, Sharingan eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion, as if he had been crying.

"Naruto, we're sorry, we're so-" Naruto shook his head, smiling. "Don't say anything, Sasuke. I'll talk to everyone when we're all together, okay?" Sasuke gazed at him in silence for a moment, bowed his head, and was gone.

"I'll go put on my armor," Naruto said, going back into the bedroom, blank smile fixed on his face. Kakashi followed Naruto and watched him, Naruto perching on the edge of the bed and slipping the armored shirt on. He reached for the fox mask, hesitated, fingertips caressing the blank white porcelain for a long minute, until he seemed to reach a decision and left it lying on the nightstand.

All three of them dressed in a strained silence, Kakashi's eyes flickering over to Naruto every few seconds. Naruto slumped forward, hand resting on the cloth covering the seal, lower lip shredding between his teeth.

"Hey, Gaara?" The former Shukaku vessel looked up from where he was strapping the gourd onto his back.

"Yes?" Naruto breathed in a long sigh,

"What's dying like?" Gaara paused, collecting his thoughts before answering,

"It was… quiet. Relieving." He blinked, thoughtful. "There was light." Naruto smiled. "But you are not going to die," Gaara said, turning, green gaze boring into Naruto's eyes. "You have two percent, and considering… well, who you are, that's more than enough."

"Yeah, guess so," Naruto agreed, standing up and opening the nightstand drawer with a clunk. He withdrew a small, plain white scroll, tied together with brown twine. Kakashi finished wrapping extra bandages around his thigh and reached up, pulling his headband down as he closed the Sharingan.

"You two ready?" Naruto said, sliding the scroll into one of his belt slots. He winced suddenly, a short hiss of pain escaping as his hand went to his belly, clenching in the cloth. "Goddamnit it, Kyuubi," he bit out, "I am going to do this, and no amount of tearing up my stomach is going to stop me!"

In the dim predawn light, his eyes flashed purple.

Kakashi did nothing, but bent down and picked up his ANBU katana, sliding it over Naruto's thin shoulders and buckling it.

Naruto gazed up at him, and then his lips curved in a blank, tired smile.

"Thank you, Kakashi," he said sincerely, a million little sharp edges of night humming behind every word, every thought and breath and syllable. Kakashi said nothing in reply, because here, in the end, there was nothing left to say.

Everything that had been said, everything that had been done-

It was over.

"We need to go," Gaara said, glancing out the window at the red line on the horizon. "The sun will rise soon."

Naruto smiled -_ faint, tiny, a martyr's smile on a mouth murdered by circumstance_ - and as one, their hands moved into the seals.

* * *

Sasuke crouched on the top of the gate, watching as the last Hunter team hurried down the path, dragging civilians with them, the families just woken from bed, children in pajamas and rubbing at their eyes with each dragging step.

'_That's 50 civilians we've managed to save,_ ' he checked the list in his hands, _ 'but that leaves Hunter teams 5 and 10 still out there somewhere._'

"Damn!" he hissed through his teeth, checking his watch. It was five-thirty. He leaped off the gate, twisted in air, and landed on the ramparts, sliding through the milling shinobi to sidle up next to Naruto and speak- how hard it was to stay professional, to say nothing even though guilt was clawing a hole in his body!-

"It's five-thirty, and detachments five and ten have not returned. Shall we close the gate?" Naruto didn't look at him, his fingers clenched on the edge of the wall, but he could feel Gaara's poison-green gaze boring through his snake mask. Naruto did nothing, shoulders slumping.

"Yeah. Yeah, close the gate and bar it." Sasuke nodded to the two chuunin on the ground. The great wooden doors clanged shut, the bar dropping down into place with a final, fatal noise.

It sounded like a death knell.

"Naruto, you said you were going to speak to us?" he prodded. Naruto turned, blinking.

"Oh. Right. Meet me in… that building over there," he pointed to an evacuated restaurant. "Kakashi, come get me when you start hearing earth moving." Kakashi nodded. Naruto leaped off the ramparts and landed on the ground, Sasuke turning to collect the others, who stood in a quiet clump not too far from where he stood.

He nodded at them and jerked a thumb at the building. Sakura's face broke out in a relieved, tremulous grin, which he returned underneath the mask.

They all landed on the ground at once, heading for the building.

Naruto was sitting at one of the tables when they entered, his hand placed on his belly and tired eyes gazing at the tabletop without really seeing.

"N-Naruto?" Hinata forced out. He looked up at them, raked a hand through his hair.

"Huh, the gang's all here!" His attempt at humor fell flat in the silence. Hinata burst into tears, Kiba wrapping an arm around her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. Sakura broke the silence first, her voice watery and shaking,

"Naruto, we- we never meant for this to happen, I promise, we were stupid and we didn't think and I'm so, so sorry-"

Naruto shook his head, rising from his seat as he took a halting step towards them, hands outstretched in some sort of sad, terrible supplication,

"It's okay, really, it's okay, I know you didn't mean it, I know, I know-" his voice cracked, eyes gleaming with a film of tears, "I love you, and don't you see-" Sasuke stared at him, shame, terrible and heavy, rising inside him at the realization of Naruto's forgiveness, at the realization that he was not half as good a man as this man that he had scorned for so many years.

His best friend.

"You guys did what you did out of love, and what's done out of love is always beyond good and evil, so don't you see? I love you. I forgive you, and all that other sappy romantic bullshit."

The world was still for a long, shivering moment, and then Hinata broke the stillness, rushing into Naruto's open arms with a terrible sob. That did it, and all the rest of them surged forward, crowding around and trying to touch him, to apologize, to whisper that they loved him one last time-

"Naruto." Kakashi's silhouette appeared in the doorway, dark against the surrounding shadows of predawn, his thin face serious and pale. "The ground's shaking, and I think that's your cue." Sasuke looked back at Naruto, who stilled, then nodded.

"Okay." He broke free of the crowd and walked to Kakashi's side, leaping up to the ramparts with him. Sasuke followed, and paused at the tragic, sad sight before him.

Gaara stood beside Naruto on the ramparts, an insane, tormented smile etched on his face, like the one of the Chuunin Exams, but so much worse. Kakashi leaned on the wall next to Naruto with an arm around his shoulders, his leg vibrating against the ground in a horrid tapping like that of a heart just before it bursts.

And Naruto, beloved Naruto, stood illuminated in the red glow from just beyond the horizon, a glow as if the entire world was submerged in a cauldron, a furnace of pain, perfectly still, perfectly straight, and only the index finger of his left hand moved, a sad testament to the tide of fear washing through Konoha's streets.

Naruto had finally, Sasuke realized with an internal howl of pain and fury and agony, gone to a place where no one could follow.

The very air itself seemed to whisper, filled with the noises of the chuunin and jounin shifting back and forth restlessly, kunai whirling in the air, the ANBU still and silent, a few nervously polishing their swords. He turned and gestured for the rest of the former Rookies to spread out along the ramparts.

Mist boiled out from the trees, thick and white, moving quickly along the ground like a silent white ocean, shrouding the forest in nothingness, with only a bloody-red light humming above the treeline. Everyone stared out into the fog, searching, silent. Hands tightened on swords, fingers went into the first seals, thumbs were bitten and blood smeared on scrolls.

The whispering noises cut off as if a great curtain had dropped over them. A soft, ceaseless thudding seeped out from the trees.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Black forms melted into being, moving quick and low, boneless in their strange, loping movements.

"My god. My god," someone behind him moaned as the forms became clear. Corpses. Hundreds of them, gray and sickly, maggots writhing in open wounds, clothes rotting off their bodies, and black chakra-fire wreathing their every movement. As if from a great distance, he heard Gaara's murmur, "Nekomata is here."

The corpses formed a line in front of the treeline, their eyes- blue with decay, rotting- fixed on the Konoha shinobi. Sasuke could hear vomiting.

A green cloud seeped along the ground, just below the fog, churning like ocean whitecaps, its putrid luminescence identifying it more clearly than anything else ever could as poison, gas, terrible, like a soft jellyfish, undulating with each breeze.

The earth trembled- cracked, shivered- fissures ripping through the ground-

The stream just outside the walls roared upward, boiling and hissing, red like blood-

Nine shapes appeared from the mist, robed in black, embroidered red clouds stitched on every robe. Sasuke's fingers curled around the hilt of his katana, his body shaking, straining with the urge to let the blade scythe out from its sheath and savage that tall, black-haired body with whirling red Sharingan eyes.

His breath hissed out from between his teeth.

"Come to play, _aniki_?"

* * *

Gaara stood beside Naruto, their fingers interlaced at his side, Kakashi behind them both, a warm, solid presence, his hands on their shoulders.

"Gaara." He tightened his fingers around those terribly cold, thin fingers.

"Yes, Naruto?"

"Can you feel them?" He closed his eyes for a long moment, against the silent line of bodies, against the feeling of his sand straining to return to Shukaku.

"Yes." They shared that communion, the sense that they were the last, would forever be the last, the last jinchuuriki, the last sacrificial children burdened with mankind's sin.

He opened his eyes as he felt Shukaku's roar- silent, heard only by him- shiver through the air.

Someone screamed. Eight hulking forms appeared within the mist, their flaming, glowing eyes searing like the hottest fires of the sun.

He had eyes only for one. The Shukaku towered over the trees, wheezing for breath, clawed fingers flexing and tearing the trees to shreds, blue veins bulging from the gray-brown skin.

He felt the cross-shaped pupils burn a hole in him as pain exploded behind his eyelids, transformed into a quick indrawn breath of air. Naruto's hand squeezed his, Kakashi's grip tightening.

The Nekomata stalked forth, its gray skin slimy and glistening, black lines whirling over the skin, black chakra-fire sighing out from between its gaping jaws.

Isonade appeared from the river, blue-black skin gleaming with the hue of blood, the water changing to blood as it left the river behind to gaze at them with obsidian eyes.

Yonbi fluttered down from the trees, wreathed in poisonous gas, sulfur gas its breath, scales the sickening green of bile and rot and decaying things.

Hokou appeared, illusions of flame and death surrounding it, with all the defenders' faces reflected in all-too-prominent and open display.

Blue-white lightning heralded Rokubi, the weasel's tails sweeping out, silent as they passed through the air, the musty stench of ozone filling his nose.

A shadow passed overhead, Shichibi diving through the air to pull to a stop in front of them, blood-stained fangs exposed for all to see.

Hachibi's three heads appeared first, bronze eyes terrible in their fury, black scales sucking all the light from the surroundings like death itself.

And then the leader of Akatsuki spoke, breaking the unnatural silence - _a flash of memory, then, of burning pain and eviscerating knives and torture_ - in his soft, terrible voice.

"Naruto Uzumaki. You have taken the demons from us and destroyed the containment statue with their escape. For that, you must die." Naruto said nothing, and finally, he raised his right hand and extended his middle finger.

Then… Hachibi spoke, its voice so deep that the air shivered with every syllable, that the Inuzukas fell to their knees with their hands clasped over their ears, whimpering.

"Kyuubi of the Nine Tails. You have called us. We have come."

Gaara felt that somehow, they were all trapped in the belly of a horrible machine, and the machine was- now, finally- bleeding to death.

Naruto's hand left his. He turned to look at Naruto once more, to etch the dearly beloved face into his eyelids so that he would see it with every breath, and slid his arms around Naruto's waist and pulled him close, mouth to mouth, hips to hips, sharing breath and life and all the love that remained unspoken.

Naruto rested his forehead on his and whispered, so soft that he wasn't sure if it was real, "I love you." Gaara kissed him again, before letting him go, watching as Naruto reached up and cupped Kakashi's face in his hands, the two embracing, Kakashi's hands running up and down Naruto's back in desperation, the kiss long and deep as if Kakashi was trying to memorize every little bit of who Naruto was.

He watched as Naruto pulled away, as he whispered an 'I love you,' to Kakashi, as he turned away from them and flicked open the scroll holder, withdrawing the plain, tired-looking scroll.

Naruto smeared blood across the scroll, rolled it back up and placed it in his belt once more.

His hands moved into the Dragon seal. The world was silent, without a breath, a whisper, a cry to disturb it. Naruto glanced back over his shoulder, and smiled, before he was gone and vaulting over the edge of the ramparts, falling through air.

Purple chakra flared out from his falling body in nine long streamers, whirling through the air with the power of a sandstorm, expanding in the rough shape of a fox. It wavered, shivered, cracked, and finally solidified into the form of the demon, its eyes closed, ears flat against its back.

The shinobi lining the ramparts tensed, hands going to weapons, at the sight of their old enemy.

They need not have worried, for when the demon's eyes opened, they were as blue as sky.

* * *

'_Have I changed anything, even one tiny bit? Did I matter at all?'_ As Naruto opened his fox eyes and saw the world new-made, ageless and eternal, he felt the Kyuubi's last, fading whisper seep through the cracks in his patched and stitched-up soul.

'_Yes, and I hate you for it. You were brave. You were good.'_ There was a pause like the moon's reflection in water, and then the words came, insult and benediction. _'You mattered.'_

Naruto closed his eyes for a moment. Peace welled inside him, like shallow waters lapping at an unknown shore, and he breathed, _'Okay, then.'_ He felt himself move towards the massed demons, power crackling and rippling through him with each tiny movement. _'Okay, then.'_

He closed his eyes and fell, slept in light.

* * *

Annotations

'…_sharp edges of night…_' – An allusion to the poem The Taxi by Amy Lowell.

'_A martyr's smile on a mouth murdered by circumstance.'_ – An allusion to the poem The Young Soldier by Wilfred Owen.

'_That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.'_ – A quote by Friedrich Nietszche from Beyond Good and Evil .

' _Gaara felt that somehow, they were all trapped in the belly of a horrible machine, and the machine was- now, finally- bleeding to death.'_ – An allusion to the song Dead Flag Blues  by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

'…_slept in light.'_ – An allusion to the title of the last episode of the TV show Babylon 5.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: A few of my reviewers reminded me that I had forgotten to add an important bit onto my annotations for the last chapter. Thanks goes to 'AntiSora' and 'Juxtathought'. Inspiration for the last few bits of dialogue between Naruto and Kyuubi was taken from The Ellimist Chronicles by K.A. Applegate.

* * *

_Fear no more the heat o' the sun  
Nor the furious winters' rages;  
Thou thy worldly task hast done,  
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages  
Golden lads and girls all must,  
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust._  
- 'Cymbeline' by Loreena McKennitt

* * *

Kakashi flung out an arm to prevent the former Rookies from jumping the wall as the red fox loped toward the onrushing enemies, the nine tails flicking with each breath of wind, the mist parting in its wake.

The fanged jaws opened, and a cry like the sundering of worlds rushed forth, so loud the earth trembled, so deep and terrible in its fury that Kakashi was forced to close his eyes against the noise and the brightly burning figure.

A tail darted out, wrapped itself around Kisame's robed figure, and flung him up into the air, one paw lifting from the ground and sending him hurtling back down to earth. He landed with a wet noise and did not get up, sprawled on burning grass, his skull broken and leaking.

Hidan was next, his scythe slashing the air as he charged. The metal passed through the flaming chakra surrounding the beast and melted, silver droplets spattering the earth like rain. The fox spun with unnatural agility and snatched him up in slavering jaws, snapping once. It was enough. Hidan dropped back down to the earth, gone to seek his god with intestines hanging like someone's demented idea of a wedding train.

Hinata came up beside him, shaking like a leaf at the sight of Naruto's relentless, bloody fury.

"Hatake-san," she said, biting her lower lip, "has- has he lost control?" Kakashi reached up and slid his headband out of the way, opening the Sharingan. Purple chakra filled his vision, flickering to blue.

"No," his voice was sober, "Not yet." Gaara stood in front of him, silent and intense, hands curled into fists, focused solely on the red kitsune. Naruto- it was really him, then: a boy wearing a demon's skin- spat flame at Zetsu, obliterating him in the shadow of an instant, with not even ash to mark where he had stood.

Itachi attacked, black fire forming from nothing and shrieking towards the fox, who turned his head and regarded it with a jaundiced eye. Kakashi felt the wildly inappropriate urge to laugh, at Itachi's- the Uchiha genius, the greatest mind Konoha had produced in all its illustrious history- schoolboy mistake.

The fox's lips peeled back into a leering grin. The flames spun in the air, reversed, and spread, rocketing back towards Itachi, who stood, frozen in the face of death. As the first flame reached him, he turned his head and looked at Sasuke, who stood farther down the line, lips twitching into a mocking smile. And then he was dead, consumed by the fire, skin bubbling, blistering, charring and falling off his body in sheets, before he was gone, the heat of his own fires boiling him into the ether.

Kazuku's threads snaked out, catching fire as soon as it got within ten feet of the fox. He tried to pull them back, but Naruto's tails flicked out, coiling around him and crushing him. Blood ran from his nose, his mouth- his face bulged grotesquely, and then it literally exploded, showering his body in his own gore. Naruto dropped the body contemptuously and caught Deidara's clay bird in his paws, ripping it into pieces with a twist of his limbs.

Deidara, himself, however, he trapped in his tails and flung into the sky, spitting a fireball of whirling white flame after him. Deidara didn't have time to scream. Ashes, gray and soft, fell to the earth like a sickening parody of snowflakes.

Black, sickle-like claws snapped out, impaling Tobi through the belly. Tobi looked down at the obsidian hook piercing the rapidly reddening cloth, back up at Naruto's intent face, and slowly slumped forward, falling to the ground in silence as the claw withdrew, leaving him on the scorched earth.

Naruto swung around, head held close to the ground, ears pinned back in feral enjoyment. Blue eyes roved around the clearing, caught sight of the Akatsuki leader and his underling, and narrowed. He lunged with terrible speed, snatching both of them up in his jaws and flicking his head back like a cat toying with a mouse, breaking their necks quietly and efficiently before dropping the limp corpses onto Tobi's.

The demons watched it all in eerie silence, unmoving, unconcerned with death or humanity. As Naruto moved closer, they cowered away from the proud being, whining, scratching at the earth, unable to escape the one whose fire had given them life in the primordial void.

Naruto's tails stopped their ceaseless flicking, settled onto the ground. Claws dug into the ground, ears pricking. He turned his head and looked at them with one sky-blue, slitted eye, lips curling into a facsimile of a grin, tongue lolling, before turning away. He lifted his head to the sky, to the sun that was climbing in the sky, and called the fire.

It slashed down from the sky like the hammer of the gods, breaking the silence with its own terrible howling, the thunder of damned souls, the calling of an abandoned child. It writhed and consumed the milling corpses with a hunger that could never be filled, a need that could never be assuaged, a hatred that could never end. It twirled, swirled, danced in long streamers from tree to tree, from demon to demon, cooking everything it touched, obliterating trees and poison and mists in boiling white-blue light.

It turned Shukaku into melting glass, yellow as the sun, tumbling and sliding over itself until the fire receded and left the demon that had tormented Gaara for sixteen years as so many beautiful crystalline glass spears piercing the sky.

It tore through the sky and the earth and the stream, tainting the sky white, charring the earth into black ash, boiling the stream away with hissing like the sound of a snake about to bite.

It, finally, ended.

Silence filled the air, the silence of a world new-made.

But Kakashi was moving, running, the soles of his shoes melting to the ground and the soles of his feet blistering- pain that he did not feel- Gaara beside him, heart thundering through his head and fear, fear, fear singing its sour melody inside him, on his tongue and in his heart.

As if separated by a thousand miles of ocean, he heard the former Rookies thundering after him, charging across charred ground black as obsidian glass with grass crumbling into ash in their wake.

He finally caught sight of blond hair against the darkness and sped up, coming to Naruto's side and flinging himself down beside his still form. Gaara skidded to a stop beside him and knelt, dragging Naruto's upper body onto his lap. Naruto lay still, skin pale and eyes closed, white streaks sprinkled through his hair like snow on a field of daisies. Still beautiful, still strong.

"Wake up," Gaara whispered, shaking him. Naruto's head lolled as if his neck was broken, his chest still. "Wake up," Gaara repeated, shaking him harder, tears swimming in his voice, cracking, his eyes glossy with the liquid gleam of tears, "please?"

His eyes burned, the fabric over the Sharingan growing damp and cold. '_ Obito… are you crying for him, too?_' A sob heaved up from inside him, splitting the air as he bent and kissed cold lips, trying to breathe life back into him, to push the fire that had been lost back into burnt-out chakra coils, taking the cold hand in his and rubbing it between his own in a vain attempt to make him warm again, alive again.

"_Wake up!_ " Gaara howled, his gourd dissolving, the ground beneath them turning to sand, the sand spiraling up into the sky, blotting out the sun, an eclipse, darkness covering the land, the echos of Shukaku.

He pulled away as Sasuke and Sakura came up beside them and dropped to their knees, Sasuke taking Naruto's hands in a friendship thought lost forever, Sakura's hair dropping over her face as she spread her hands over Naruto's chest and concentrated, green chakra, green like the color of a new leaf, diffusing into the air.

Kakashi turned his hand and brushed the back of his finger across Naruto's cheek, lips curling into a hysterical smile of grief. Blond lashes lay against pale skin, like crescents of ash on snow.

'_Still, so still…_' He remembered the last time this happened, when he knelt under cold raindrops and held the hand of a boy whose body was crushed under a boulder, struggling for life, each shattered, shaking breath a battle won in a war that had already been lost.

That story had been a tragedy.

He supposed this one would be, too.

Tsunade and Shizune broke through the silent circle around Naruto, kneeling in the black dust and joining Sakura in forcing chakra into Naruto's still body.

"Come on…" Sakura gritted out through clenched teeth, a drop of sweat rolling down her nose, tears shining in her eyes. Rock Lee placed a hand on her shoulder, his normally smiling face solemn, blank, mask-like.

"Come on, idiot," Sasuke was whispering, he belatedly noticed, had been whispering for several minutes now, "you can do it, come back to us, don't make us all end up crying- you promised us, remember?" He sniffled, wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve in a decidedly un-Sasuke-like gesture, "You said you'd never make your precious people cry, like- like I did. Wake up, please, we're all waiting."

Kakashi leaned into Gaara's side, running his fingers through Naruto's hair in a return to the old habits of the past two months, his breath frozen and cold in his chest. The people crowded around them all ceased to exist, ceased to be, so that it was only he and Gaara and Naruto at the end of the world, in a land of silence and sorrow.

"I am not going to lose you," Tsunade growled, the jutsu that kept her appearance young wavering in and out of existence as she poured every bit of available chakra into Naruto before finally flickering out altogether, "I am too _fucking_ tired of being Hokage to go back to it, you little twerp! So wake up!"

Kakashi turned his head to gaze dully at Gaara, the leaden, heavy weight of grief settling onto his chest with the finality of a kunai through the heart. Funny, because that was what this felt like. Gaara met his gaze with calm implacability, his faith in Naruto spoken in every breath and heartbeat. '_'I wish. I wish I could believe like he does._'

Minutes ticked past, gone and dead. He felt a gloved hand settle on his shoulder and turned to look at Neji, proud Neji who hadn't believed in changing fate, Neji whose face was stony in his belief that this was Naruto, Naruto who always beat the odds. Sakura wavered and fell backward, Lee catching her as she fainted from chakra exhaustion. Shizune followed, Shino easing her to the ground as Hinata took her place, face determined.

Kakashi didn't know how long they'd been sitting here. Fifteen minutes, half an hour, two hours? Gaara cradled Naruto's head in his arms, fingers tracing the blue veins at the temples, stroking the places where the whisker scars had been.

Thump.

Life bloomed under his fingers. Naruto's chest jerked upward, breath hissing into his lungs.

There was a long moment of silence between that heartbeat and the next.

It happened again, and again, and again, settling into an irregular rhythm, which melted into mathematic regularity. Tsunade rocked back on her heels, wiping at her forehead, tears running from her eyes and smudging her makeup.

"He's alive." Her voice broke in incredulity. "He's alive." Gaara bent his head and kissed Naruto's forehead, fingers resting on the pulse throbbing through the veins. Kakashi felt himself grin, then laugh, high-pitched, wavering with stress, but everyone joined him, shrieking their relief to the sky, arms around each other, joy returned to the world once more, and for that one glorious moment, it seemed as if they would all live forever.

* * *

Gaara nodded in greeting to the nurses trotting up and down the tiled hallways as he started up the main stairway. They all waved hello back, giggled, a few calling out greetings in the way that was so different from the silence of Suna.

Everyone here knew he and Kakashi by name. Unsurprising, since they had been coming here for a year. Pushing the door open, he entered what the nurses referred to as the 'long-term care ward.' The long hallway was almost silent, the background humming of machinery ever-present.

He found room number twenty-three and opened the door heavy with get-well notes, mail stuffed into the box attached to the door. The room was filled with soft white light, illuminating the numerous gifts- boxes of ramen noodles, a stuffed kunai, way too many music tapes- spilling onto the bed and its occupant.

Naruto lay asleep, pale and drawn, his blue eyes hidden from the world. He looked small, so small and frail surrounded by the ceaseless humming of life support machinery. Blond hair flowed onto the pillows, his hair cut every few months by Sakura. Gaara had tried to do it once, but Sakura, when she saw what he had done, had shrieked, taken the scissors away, and forbidden him to ever go near Naruto's head with a sharp object again.

"Hello, Naruto," he said, unbuckling his gourd and setting it down in the corner before going to the window and pulling the shades up, looking out on the village.

Naruto's grinning face stared out over Konoha, carved into the living rock of the Hokage Mountain, next to Tsunade and his father.

" Tsunade misses you," he turned and sat on the bed beside Naruto, taking his hand and beginning to massage the fingers to keep the muscles supple, as he and Kakashi did every day, "she keeps threatening to give the Hokage position to Shikamaru. The position's waiting for you; the people want you back." He looked down, comparing the ring on his finger with the one on Naruto's. A ring of braided strips of bronze, silver, and gold, the same one that was on Kakashi's finger.

"Hey," Kakashi poked his head around the door, smiling underneath the mask. "I talked to Sakura, and she says that Naruto's eyelids flickered for a little while yesterday." Gaara returned the smile, switching hands. "That's good." Kakashi came to his side, gazing down onto Naruto's face for a moment before he moved to pull the sheets up out of the foot of the bed to start on Naruto's feet.

"You received a mission for your genin team from Tsunade today, right?" Kakashi said, flopping into the armchair and stretching his long legs out underneath the bed, Naruto's feet resting in his lap.

"Yes," Gaara replied, working on bending Naruto's elbow, "Katashi was unhappy about it only being C-rank. I asked Tsunade if there was an estimate for when-" -_ always 'when', never 'if'_ - "Naruto would wake."

"And?"

"After she yelled for a while about my asking the same question every day, she told me that it still depended on whether his chakra coils are able to hold chakra at all. If they can't…" he trailed off, focusing on massaging Naruto's shoulders, before looking up. Kakashi met his gaze with sad knowing, a small smile underneath the mask.

"I know."

* * *

The sun had set over the village hidden in the leaves, bathing it in the warm golden light of a summer evening. Fireflies flickered in the grass around the streams, the glass spires that had been Shukaku reflecting the white lights and multiplying them into a spangle of stars.

Kakashi turned away from the window, watched Gaara pull the blankets up on Naruto's bed and comb the blond hair off the pale forehead with his fingers, face unguarded, his expression a sad mix of love and sorrow.

Gaara bent and kissed Naruto's forehead, standing and moving to the door, pulling his gourd on and buckling the straps. Kakashi crossed to Naruto's bed and kissed the warm lips- _please move, please respond _- before pulling away.

He gazed down at the still face (how odd it was to see Naruto's face still, when for twenty years it had always been smiling, grinning, screwed up in some contorted emotion) and smiled.

"We'll wait for you," he promised, turning to go to Gaara, who stood by the door, green eyes gleaming in the dimness. Kakashi reached up, turned the lights off, and they left, leaving the room wrapped in silence and shadows.

'_As long as you need us to._'

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading Dulce Et Decorum Est. 


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